User talk:CRGreathouse/Archive 4

RfC at WT:ECON
I've reformulated the proposed guidelines based on your and other's comments. I would appreciate it if you could have a look and further comment there. Thankyou, --LK (talk) 15:37, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Mediation for WikiProject Economics Guidelines
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Thank you, LK (talk) 07:19, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Use four tildes at the end of your comment to generate signature. 202.71.143.2 (talk) 08:38, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry it's come to this, but edit warring continues on the project homepage. LK (talk) 07:19, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Request for mediation accepted
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Thanks, The Four Deuces (talk) 19:42, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Skewes number
I have a question. Is there any bound lower than :$$10^{10^{10^{963}}}$$ known without using computers? Thank you. Motomuku (talk) 21:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I have no idea. I don't share your irrational fear of computer-generated proofs. CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:01, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not fearing. I'd just like to make distinctions. Wouldn' you? Motomuku (talk) 07:53, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


 * No, because reliable sources don't. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:59, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

OPN
Do you admit the correctness of this? (Let $$p_1$$ be the smallest all $$p_i$$s.)


 * N is of the form
 * $$N=q^{\alpha} p_1^{2e_1} \cdots p_k^{2e_k}, $$
 * where:
 * q, p1, ..., pk are distinct primes (Euler).
 * q ≡ α ≡ 1 (mod 4) (Euler).
 * Either N≡ 1(mod 12), or $$ N \equiv (3^{2e_1+3}-9)/2 \pmod {2(3^{2e_1+3}-9)} $$ (Roberts 2008).

Motomuku (talk) 20:07, 18 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I haven't considered its correctness, only that it's not stated in a WP:RS. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:29, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is. It is not stated this way, but it's reliable. Motomuku (talk) 02:57, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Take it to WT:MATH, then. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:24, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Hilbert's second
You wrote,

''But none of this really matters, because Hilbert *wasn't* asking about real numbers. He was asking about rational numbers, which is clearly equivalent to asking about natural numbers or integers''

Susumu Hayashi is a historian as well as a logician at Kyoto University. What Hayashi researched and found out was Hilbert was asking about real numbers. I'm sure you are aware of the result Hilbert proved that the consistency of Euclidean Geometry is equivalent to the consistency of reals. Hilbert's focus was on reals and Hayashi has deeply surveyed on that. But it's not only you. Hayashi admits many mathematicians are misunderstanding. Motomuku (talk) 01:37, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * If you get a citation on that, you might be able to include it in the article. But I think the easier explanation is that Hayashi was wrong. Hilbert was very clear in specifying rational numbers or integers, and expressed dismay at Goedel's result (which was clearly inapplicable to simple theories like that of real closed fields). I'd be happy to read what Hayashi had to say, though.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Just a guess here &mdash; "the consistency of reals" per se doesn't make sense, but one possible interpretation of the phrase would be the consistency of second-order arithmetic, or some particular axiomatization thereof. I don't really think that's what Hilbert was talking about, but one would have to read him pretty carefully to really rule it out. And of course the Goedel results certainly do apply to (say) 2nd-order PA (understood as a first-order theory). --Trovatore (talk)
 * One the the main reasons I ask for a citation is to learn precisely what is meant by "the consistency of the reals". You haven't heard anything about this, Trovatore, have you? CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * No. --Trovatore (talk) 19:54, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion invitation
Ikip 05:06, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

(refactored) Ikip 04:37, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Threshold in piecewise regression analysis
An article that you have been involved in editing, Threshold in piecewise regression analysis, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/. Thank you.Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:44, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you
Thank you so much for fixing Vladimir_Miklyukov. I saw the Marquis Who Is Who references were removed. There is an article there under different spelling "Mikljukov", I have a copy of that page (can scan and email it in the attachment, if needed). May be it is not so important though comparing to the whole new look of the article. I won't be touching anything by myself. May be there is a reason I don't know. Thanx again((-:--sobaka_kachalova 17:31, 9 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SobakaKachalova (talk • contribs)


 * That reference isn't notable (see WP:NOTE). Lots of unfamous, non-notable people get into that book, so it's not a good reference on a Wikipedia biography.  It seems that Miklyukov *is* notable, so why rely on a weak source like that?  I looked up the Distinguished Scientist of the Russian Federation link, and as best I could make out he's there with all the right information (it lists him as scientific director at Волгоградский государственный университет = Volgograd State University).  If he has that, why bother with nonsense like Marquis?
 * Reiterating: I don't doubt that he's mentioned in the Marquis book, I just don't think that source should be used.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:34, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Here is the link to Russian_educational_system. Russian post graduate educational system after PhD has one more level (Doctor of science) which does not have an equivalent in US as far as I know. Miklyukov became a doctor in 1981 (that piece was removed).
 * I'll try to find a citation on Superslow Laboratory. The proof of that is those 4 books published by Volgograd State University Press under Publications of Superslow Processes Laboratory section (was deleted). He is listed there is a head editor, and some of his articles included there as well. I'll try to find a citation though.
 * Superslow process article has a much better edition in Russian wikipedia. I'll translate it and post within a day or two. There should be some grammar imperfections there. Thanks again.--sobaka_kachalova 22:00, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

"Unless something this important comes up"
That was a fine piece of sarcasm, and makes it much easier for me to keep my own mouth shut about this ridiculous matter. Thanks. —Dominus (talk) 17:26, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Final discussion for Requests for comment/Biographies of living people
Hello, I note that you have commented on the first phase of Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

As this RFC closes, there are two proposals being considered:
 * 1) Proposal to Close This RfC
 * 2) Alternate proposal to close this RFC: we don't need a whole new layer of bureaucracy

Your opinion on this is welcome. Okip  02:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Trigonometric identity, etc.
Thanks for copying the proof to that fellow's subpage. I didn't think to do that. Regards, —Largo Plazo (talk) 06:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Technically, the article was subject to speedy deletion as recreation of deleted article Trigonometry circulant. But the higher calling of WP:BITE came into play. This wasn't some drive-by vandal, but someone who has done serious work.  WP:OR, to be sure, by all counts -- but not everyone knows our rules!  So I dropped a nice note on his page linking him to the userified version, and hopefully [s]he'll feel better about Wikipedia than had I acted otherwise.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 06:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

About your remark WP:BITE in User:Daviddaved/A trigonometric identity for a circulant matrix‎‎. Respectfully disagreed. You are probably unaware that the user is 100% unresponsive to numerous notices in his talk page, and deletes afd notices. As such, I cannot accept him as a willing member wikipedia community. In addition, his page has no chance to be a wikipedia article, being 100% original research. Therefore there is no reason to keep it here: it has no relation to the project of wikipedia. He has enough space on his home computer. - Altenmann >t 10:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, after I wrote the above, even before I saw the further developments above and on the user's talk page, I'd changed my mind. It was a brain fart on my part. I was thinking about it in terms of making it available so he could copy it back off-line for use elsewhere. That was silly: he obviously didn't compose it here, he already has a copy off-line. Also, for some reason it had slipped my mind momentarily that this is someone who had removed the AFD tag three or four times after already having been told he wasn't allowed to and that he'd been blocked for it. Altenmann's right: it has no purpose being on Wikipedia. I'm not saying this to be critical in any way, I'm just reversing myself! —Largo Plazo (talk) 12:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree that [s]he has a copy off-line. I do think it's understandable that [s]he would remove tags -- understanding of WP:OWNership is hard.  But I think that making newcomers welcome and turning them into productive users is a noble cause.  I think a hardline policy here is more likely to produce a vandal, frankly.
 * But it's moot at the moment. Another admin has blocked the user for 48 hours, so I suppose we'll see whether the stick is better than the carrot.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * While admiring your good will and openheartedness I disagree that it's understandable that [s]he would continue to remove tags after one, two, three warnings and then a final warning! This person had already demonstrated ample lack of concern for Wikipedia's ways. —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * At least until the block expires, I'm washing my hands of the matter. I'd like to think that, had I intervened earlier (requiring me to have seen it sooner), I might have avoided this whole mess. But that's not the way it happened and perhaps this current road is the only one left to us.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Since the AfD has already been closed, I lifted my block, since the case of disruption no longer applicable. Anybody willing may talk to this guy. - Altenmann >t 00:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Altenmann. Yes, I may be a fool, but I still think there's hope. CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

HTML attributes
Hi, with you introduced some errors in the table shown under the "Description" heading. First, you added a semicolon after all the  which meant that the attribute's value was unrecognised and therefore ignored. Second, you added  into the style list for three of the four rows, but didn't remove it from all the cells - those cells where it wasn't removed therefore became 900%. I have now fixed, see. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:22, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for catching that! I'll notify Dabsolver's maintainer. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:51, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Obsolete F-test for equal variances
Hi. Could you explain why you deleted this F-test from the category of obsolete statistical procedures, especially without comment? Wikipedia has categories for other obsolete scientific theories, etc., but you don't seem to have removed any items from those categories (recently). Thanks. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:13, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You didn't give a diff and the article you named doesn't exist, so I can't comment precisely. But I recall removing Category:Obsolete statistical theories from an article with Category:Obsolete statistical procedures.  Pages should not generally be in a subcategory and its parent category; see WP:CAT.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:38, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Spacing changes
I note that you've made a number of edits with "spacing" in the edit summary (like this one, which I actually largely agree with aside from this issue). Double spaces after a sentence and single spaces after a sentence both display exactly the same to the reader, so it's entirely a matter of editor convenience / preference which one is used. (I, personally, prefer double spaces.) There's no gain in standardizing this. SnowFire (talk) 22:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Frankly that has more to do with habit than preferences. I noticed myself making the change so I included it in the edit summary.  As you can see I prefer double spaces when writing for myself (including here) but not in articles.  CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:36, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Treatment effect
Please review the equation for stable unit-treatment additivity (e.g. Hinkelmann & Kempthorne) to see that the treatment effect is defined as the same for all units. Consequently (trivially, the average of a constant is the constant), it is the average treatment effect. However, it is conceptually crucial to note that the linear model is defined for the treatment effect (not in terms of the treatment effect).

Please reverse your edit, delinking treatment effect and linking "average treatment effect.

I am sorry for writing tersely. I may be able to expand this next week. Thanks! Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Feel free to change it. I don't like the link to treatment effect as it's a dab, but if you can find a better link that would be fantastic.
 * If it's common to get it wrong, perhaps there should be at least a brief mention of it in the article?
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:28, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I´ll try to write a paragraph on treatment effects. I agree that Average te should be mentioned. Best, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 15:04, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for watching the article so closely. I'm busy now (as you seem to be!) so it may be a while before I get a look at your changes... but I trust your decisions. CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:18, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Dab solver
Your recent edits with Dab solver seem to be removing rather a lot of links, without mentioning this in the edit summary. Is this intended behaviour? Algebraist 16:01, 11 July 2010 (UTC)


 * That's actually just me, rather than the Dab solver. I usually add this to the edit summary at the end (though sometimes I miss it).
 * But it's not actually the wholesale removal of links that it may appear to be -- rather, I remove links that have already appeared linked *in that same subsection*. I'm not merely removing links that are obvious and superfluous examples of overlinking, just those that are so far beyond the pale that there shouldn't be much argument. (There are plenty of links that really don't belong in articles by WP:LINK but I err on the side of leaving them in.)
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:12, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In that case, you should be a little more careful. For example, Algebraic structure now contains two instances of the phrase "see modular arithmetic" (without a link). They should either be linked or removed. Algebraist 16:16, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Drat. I usually catch those; sometimes I get too much 'in the zone' I suppose. Thanks for the heads-up. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:17, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I notice that you did the same thing with Aristotle, de-linking the first appearance of Plato, for example, as well as the names of some of his books. I think your idea of what constitutes overlinking is a bit more extreme than the rest of the community's. Your edit summary also said only that you had disambiguated a single link.  RJC  TalkContribs 14:17, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The second occurrence, actually, after the infobox. You're right about the edit summaries, though; I should be clearer when I make edits beyond just those with the Dab solver.  But I disagree with your reversion, and may revert (though perhaps allowing the duplicate links to Plato and Alexander in the opening).  WP:OVERLINK says that an article should generally be linked to once in an article, but that they can be linked to more than one if the further occurrences are in different sections that are sufficiently separated.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:23, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Why remove the wikilink to the (US) Department of the Treasury with this edit? Thanks. -Shootbamboo (talk) 21:11, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's already linked in that section. See WP:OVERLINK. CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:56, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And by that section you mean the infobox? -Shootbamboo (talk) 02:00, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Category
Thank you for commenting here. Could you please respond: do you suggest to create an additional category for databases like Fishbase rather than to simply rename the old category? Thanks.Biophys (talk) 21:55, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Jevons Paradox
I've been thinking of proposing Jevons Paradox for GA. As we both wrote the bulk of it, want to co-sponsor it for GA? LK (talk) 04:54, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's ask for an article review first. I'd like to see it actually *pass* GA. :) CRGreathouse (t | c) 11:50, 6 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Great, I'll keep an eye on the peer-review page. LK (talk) 03:26, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Greek number theory
"Number theory was a favorite study among the Greek mathematicians of the early and late Hellenistic periods.Archimedes's method wrote infinite series (1/4 geometric series) as finite series defining the first calculus, a formula for the area of a parabola. The Chinese Remainder Theorem] arrived on the Silk Road as understood by Diophantus, 100 AD, that spread to (3rd century AD) in Alexandria, Egypt. Hellenes were aware of the Diophantine equation concept in numerous special cases. Fibonacci, studying under Arab mentors, used the CRT in the Liber Abaci, as well as Greek and Arab number theory that generally converted rational numbers to unit fraction series.

Diophantus' method found integer solutions to linear indeterminate equations, equations that lacked sufficient information to produce a single discrete set of answers. Parametric methods developed. The equation $$x + y = 5$$ was such an equation. Diophantus discovered from the CRT the same indeterminate equations that Carl F. Gauss documented in 1801 in Disquisitiones Arithmeticae."

There nothing wrong with the above. Greeks used number theory before the CRT arrived, and Diophantus began solving indeterminate equations. Read both sides of Archimedes' method! The infinite series side reported 4A/3 = A + A/4 + A/16 + A/64 ... a fact that scholars have connected with the method of exhaustion. Heiberg in 1906 cited, as Dijksterhuis reported in "Archimedes", 1987, Princeton Press, that Archimedes included a finite version: 4A/3 = A + A/4 + A/12. We may argue about the meaning of Archimedes' note. But to exclude this fact as if it did exist ... is a practice that must STOP! Best Regards, Milo Gardner.


 * You're putting information in the wrong article. Try, perhaps, The Method of Mechanical Theorems or Archimedes. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:17, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Greathouse: Linking article as actual historical threads showing the ancient number theory building blocks of LCMs, GCDs and so forth known by Archimedes and Diophnatus were properly recorded. Please replace the edited information by considering: Archimedes' number theory was not mentioned in the Wekipedia article. It should be. Many have attempted this task. BACKING AWAY FROM THIS ISSUE, as your editing misreported two issues, SHOWS A LACK OF SCHOLARSHIP (my opinion). Archimedes' calculus was the proper Wikipedia link, where the area of parabola, given by 4A/3 = A + A/4 + A/16 + ... + A/4n + ... defined a 1/4 geometric series multiplied by the area of a paraboa. This is the first issue that you oddly leave mute. Your suggestion does not open an Archimedes number theory topic, it only closes an important door to the oldest known calculus. Eudoxus has long been given credit by scholars for the 1/4 geometric series, one phase of the Eye of Horus series, a tradition followed by Archimedes. More importantly, Archimedes' number theory went on to show (per Heiberg's 1906 translation) that 4A/3 = A + A/4 + A/12, as a second side of the well known, but over-stressed 'method of exhaustion' 1/4 geometric series topic.

Concerning Diophantus, your are correct in concluding uses of number theory. The weakness of your editing does not attempt to show two source of 100 AD indeterminate equations number theory (one proposed year in Diophantus' life that I reported in an under grad term paper) reported in 300 AD edited texts, per your editing. The Chinese Remainder Theory explicitly offered central intellectual foundations to Diophantus for the solution ofr indeterminate equations. On the number theory side of Diophantus's mathematics, earlier Greek number theory was also, as Classical scholars have proposed for over 100 years.

Having gone on too long, thank you for standing back, and re-reading your sources, and short-sided points of view. Include the number theory of Archimedes from the first known calculus, LCM, GCD and other other facts that Diophantus relied upon. Milo Gardner.;


 * You're putting the information in the wrong place. I've already shown you places that might be more appropriate.  Further, the article you're adding to is likely to be replaced, in its entirety.  You would know this if you had read the article's Talk page.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

The information that is being discussed, on my side, needs to be inserted several places. Your suggestion is appreciated. However, pointing away from the real problem, what was Greek number theory all about, in terms of Archimedes and Diophantus' understandings? and citing a possible death or major revision of one Wikipedia page again shows a lack of understanding of the issues involved. Besat Regards, Milo Gardner 8/25/10.

Vancouver wikilinks
Hi CR, I reverted your edit at Vancouver where you removed wikilinks because I wasn't sure where you were going with it. It looks a bit like you were using a tool to identify first wiki-linking and remove any following links. My take on this is that linking is very much context-specific. First and/or most prominent occurence within the article text should always be linked. So for me, if there is a w/link to something in the lede, and the same thing comes up much farther down in a section devoted to that sub-topic, it gets w/linked there too. The test being, would a casual reader remember that they cuold scroll 100KB back up to find the "first" link, now that they have got to the actual writing that makes them curious about the linked subject?

Wikilinks within image captions (again, just IMO) should never stand as the "first, therefore correct" place to put a w/link. Captions are independent of the body text. In this case, the only link I could find left to VAG was in its picture, the body text had been stripped. VAG should be w/linked from both the body text and the image caption, so the link is there for both our "textually-literate" and "visually-literate" readers. This is particularly problematic using automation, since the image insertion will often be made upstream of the body text in order to get the image to sit beside the text. And also w/links were removed from within the reference section - again, unless the redundancy checking is done solely within that section, for me it is a disservice to our readers to ask them to scroll back (way way back) to find whichever instance was first in the entire article.

I've no idea whether my ideas are supported by the style guide, I rely more on a sense of what someone reading the article would like to see, hence I make that distinction between wikilinks in the lede, in the body, in captions, and in sources. Your mileage may vary. :) If you revert back I'll stay quiet. Regards! Franamax (talk) 05:49, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that my edit was within the most cautious reading of WP:OVERLINK. In particular, I did not remove any link unless there was an earlier link, not just in the article but in that particular subsection.
 * Further, the article is massively overlinked! It's hard to read with that vast sea of blue.
 * But with WP:0RR, I'll let the article stand. I probably won't refer to it often, so it's not a big deal to me how it looks.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Initial context-setting
Before this edit, the article began by telling the lay reader that mathematics is what the article is about. Something that does that should be there. In some cases, the title of the article is enough to do that; sometimes the context is enough; sometimes a phrase like "In geometry,..." or "In number theory,..." or "In algebra,..." is enough. But "In harmonic analysis,..." is not. The lay reader could think that means it's about music, or about the supernatural, or about something else. And the lay reader cannot be expected to know what topological groups are. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's any chance of the present article being understood by a lay reader. Maybe some person far more skilled than I will edit that article some day to give it a lede that can be understood by those who don't know what harmonic analysis or topological groups are; until then, this feels like lip service to me.
 * In general, I feel as Trovatore does about avoiding large jumps in generality.
 * If you'd like to revert, go ahead; by WP:0RR I'll let your revert stick. If you wanted to compromise, a non-wikilinked mention of "mathematics" strikes me as useless but not nearly as bad as mathematics.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

List of prime numbers
A split of List of prime numbers is discussed at Talk:List of prime numbers. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:41, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Please clarify Arrow's_impossibility_theorem edit reversion
From the Range voting article:
 * As it satisfies the criteria of a deterministic voting system, with non-imposition, non-dictatorship, monotonicity, and independence of irrelevant alternatives, it may appear that it violates Arrow's impossibility theorem. The reason that range voting is not regarded as a counter-example to Arrow's theorem is that it is a cardinal voting system, while the "universality" criterion of Arrow's theorem effectively restricts that result to ordinal voting systems.

My edit indicated that range voting does not apply (as indicated in the above, sourced, material), but your reversion indicates that it does without any reference. Please clarify or elaborate more than just saying "it does". --Osndok (talk) 19:11, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I explained in my edit summary. Please read a formal statement of the universality criterion.
 * If need be I can cite Arrow 1950 (or Arrow 1951, or Arrow 1963), but that would be silly in this context.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:49, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I have modified the edit with both POVs, please review: --Osndok (talk) 20:21, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The "Several voting systems..." paragraph is good. The "Advocates..." paragraph is poor.  I will edit it and then you can modify it as you like in return.  Eventually we'll make it good. :) CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:58, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, I'm interested in playing this game.  Which is your preferred formal statement of universality?   Assuming that there are at least as many discrete scores that can be assigned as there are candidates,  how does ranged voting violate universality?  Obscuranym (talk) 16:47, 5 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Because range voting allows voters to rank candidates equal (or express no opinion at all!), therefore in the theoretical/strictest sense range voting cannot ever guarantee "a unique and complete ranking" (required for arrow's theorem). This is true even with one voter, and is IMHO the quintessential difference between the theory and practice of voting systems (single-voter / ties). Also why 'majority defeat disqualifier' (and other rank-with-equal-option voting systems "fail" arrow's theorem). Cheers. --Osndok (talk) 19:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * In my own limited understanding, this isn't really an essential feature of Arrow's Theorem.   For example in Freek Wiedijk's "Formalizing Arrow's Theorem" proves the theorem using linear preorders,  meaning the theorem continues to hold if ties are allowed. (if the correspondence between the formal proof and the informal description is to be believed,  that is).   Not to mention that by your description,  almost no system technically has the universality principle,  as Condorcet's Criterion leads to a 3-way tie when you get a 2/3 winner cycle.  (Of course, the probability of that happening with a large number of voters is practically zero...)  Obscuranym (talk) 15:56, 20 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, everyone -- some serious issues have come up in my life and I'm not going to be able to get to this any time soon. Obscuranym, I think the book was Taylor's 2005 overview book, though it may have been Arrow's original (1950) work.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)


 * No problem, I'm a relative novice to social choice theory, and I've found it frustratingly time consuming to decipher.  ;-) Obscuranym (talk) 15:56, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Cantorian infinities
Hi, there is obviously more to this than using five instead of seven words. Making a blanket existential statement about such sets involves an ontological commitment that will rub many readers the wrong way, and if the fact about Cantorian infinities can be stated in a less combative fashion, all the better. Tkuvho (talk) 14:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't mind the distinction, but the proper place for that is the body, not the lede. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:51, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Before I saw your comment, I left a similar remark at the talk page. Anyway feel free to contribute there; Trovatore started a thread. Tkuvho (talk) 18:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Arrow's impossibility theorem
Please take a look at Arrow's impossibility theorem. In my opinion, IIA must say: "If every voter's preferences between X and Y remain unchanged when Z is added to the slate, then the group's preference between X and Y will also remain unchanged." However, Theorist2 changed it to : "If every voter's preferences between X and Y remain unchanged, then the group's preference between X and Y will also remain unchanged (even if voters' preferences between other pairs like X and Z, Y and Z, or Z and Z' change)." Markus Schulze 16:31, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the standard formulation of IIA is adding nonwinning candidates to the slate. Of course by symmetry we can also remove nonwinning candidates. So we could remove a nonwinning candidate Z and then add a nonwinning candidate Z'.
 * This is weaker than the standard IIA, and it's not even a priori obvious that Arrow's theorem holds with this version. So I agree with you that it should go.
 * If this is in the literature somewhere I have no immediate objection to including it in Independence of irrelevant alternatives, but it probably shouldn't go in the Arrow's theorem page.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:43, 10 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmmm....what book do you have? See Talk:Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem for my response.--Theorist2 (talk) 06:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Revert...
hello. You (and XX) seem to have a disagreement with my recent edit(s) on the "Infinity" article. Not sure why. He said "not helpful" though he knew they were "good-faith." He didn't really explain HOW they were supposedly a "not helpful." (By the way, he also removed a separate edit, the first one, a simple citation reference, that was put in by me, per tag request...)

I did not re-do my other edit (the one that seems to be in question for some unexplained reason), but I did put back the citation reference for the first paragraph.....that was simply in compliance to the tag on the top of the article. Not sure why that would have to be unexplainably "reverted". Is there something wrong with that Dictionary citation reference maybe? Let me know your thoughts. Thanks. ResearchRave (talk) 02:32, 17 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It's in the wrong place. References about a typical etymology (unlike, perhaps, that of "orange") belong at infinity and not at infinity. CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:07, 17 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Alright, I see. I mean, if you say so...  But that's for that edit.  The etymology one I guess.   There could be maybe a question.   I understand.


 * But I'm still a bit curious why XX also removed the other edit, the first one. The citation one.  Where I simply put in a reference citation, for the first paragraph, per the tag requests. Just a simple reference.  I mean was that webpage maybe "not reputable" enough or something?   He called it "misleading" in his revert comment, but didn't exactly explain how. What do you think of that at least?  just curious. ResearchRave (talk) 03:12, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's continue on the Talk page of the article. CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:13, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * ok...no problem. ResearchRave (talk) 03:14, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

dash
Hello.

Please notice my followup to this edit. An en-dash rather than a hyphen is used in this context, per WP:MOS. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:12, 30 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I thought I had copied an en-dash; I guess not. I'm all for keeping the ems, ens, nonbreaking dashes, hyphen-minuses, hyphens, and horizontal lines straight. CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:54, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

ArbCom Election RFC courtesy notice
A request for comment that may interest you is currently in progress at Requests for comment/2010 ArbCom election voting procedure. If you have already participated, then please disregard this notice and my apologies. A Horse called Man 15:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Merger of symbolic computation with computer algebra system
You may be interested in Talk:Symbolic computation. Yaris678 (talk) 17:19, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Twenty-first century developments
Isn't it much too early to decide what counts as the main results of twenty-first century number theory? Having such a section has the potential to give rise to endless disputes. Feketekave (talk) 11:07, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * No. This is well agreed upon in the academic community (just look at the citations, and what they say!), and I haven't seen any disputes about it on Wikipedia... except yours, of course. :) CRGreathouse (t | c) 13:34, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * What is agreed upon in the academic community is that this is a (very) important paper, and the outcome of a long sequence of works on the part of other people; in essence, Green-Tao is a transfer of the proof of (or key ideas of several proofs of) Szemeredi's theorem to a superset of the integers which shares many of the properties of the integers. (I am simplifying slightly; what is really used is the "enveloping sieve" - which existed before, but was little known outside analytic number theory - rather than strictly speaking a superset).


 * There may be a certain misapprehension about the contents of Green-Tao, in the sense that the wider mathematical community may see it as being much more specific to the primes than it really is. As Green and Tao themselves say, their paper really says much more about arithmetic progressions than about the primes. (To wit, it shows that current techniques for detecting arithmetic progressions (see, e.g., the work of Gowers) are robust.)


 * If (for whatever reason) we had to pick one paper on "hard" number theory from the first decade of the twentieth century, one could probably make a better case for, say, Goldston-Pintz-Yildirim, which also goes much further than was thought plausible, and which is in most senses arguably harder (as opposed to "soft", not as opposed to "easy").


 * That said, let me clarify that I do not mean at all to put down Green-Tao, or to advocate some specific alternatives instead. Rather, I would suggest that it is much too early in the game to know what will be seen at the end of the twenty-first century as being the four or five main results of number theory in the century. We should make a difference between history and current events. Feketekave (talk) 14:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I would much sooner add Goldston-Pintz-Yıldırım than remove Green–Tao. I do think that it has been long enough, but more to the point: if it turns out that the paper is a dead end we can always remove it later.  Someone who didn't know much about number theory (else why read an introductory page like Number theory?) would be better served, I feel, by a major result (or two) from the last decade (or two).  CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Then we would need to include it under a heading such as "recent work", rather than under "Twenty-first-century developments", since the latter implies a parallel to "Twentieth-century developments" that we cannot make due to a lack of perspective. Even better, we could simply add a sentence or two at the end of the current "twentieth-century developments" section: "Notable work in the first decade of the twentieth-first century includes Clozel, Taylor, Harris and Shepherd-Barron's work on the Sato-Tate conjecture, the work by Green, Tao, Ziegler and others on linear forms in the primes and the inverse Gowers norm conjectures, and Goldston, Pintz and Yildirim's work on small gaps between primes." (Some more names may be needed for the first item; see Sato-Tate conjecture. Some more names may also be needed for number two; I have included Ziegler simply because she happens to have coauthored some of the relevant papers with Green and Tao.)


 * We should also consider changing "twenty-century developments" to "Contemporary work" or "The contemporary era"; centuries are very arbitrary division lines, the early twentieth century is already treated, and most of the people in the section are either still alive or worked with or taught people who are still alive. Feketekave (talk) 10:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * A case can also be made for Catalan's conjecture.


 * At the same time, let me say that I do not quite see how either the 20th or the 21th century sections serve much of a purpose for a beginning reader as they now stand; they amount to little more than lists of names of people and names of results. Feketekave (talk) 10:59, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * ...and, if, as you said, the last two decades have to be talked about, then we should certainly mention Gowers (who after all got the Fields Medal for his troubles). Green and Tao's result is largely based on his results, methods and strategy - strengthened somewhat at certain key places, and applied to the enveloping sieve. If their (good) work is number theory, so is his. Feketekave (talk) 14:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I disagree with both section name changes you suggest. (You're free to ignore me and change them anyway; you might want to discuss it on the Talk page first.)  As far as I'm concerned the purpose of the section is to mirror the 19th and 20th century sections as closely as our nearness to events allows.  For the novice reader, the value is seeing that the field is still developing -- strange as it might seem, there are many who think we've 'done everything' in math.
 * On the other hand, the idea of a 'notable new work' section sounds good to me. Maybe you should add it, and then you'll have a better case for removing the 21st century section.  (I don't think I'll support it even then, but you may be able to get consensus to keep it that way.)
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

vanity press
I trust that you are aware that subsidy publishers is a redirect to vanity press? --Orlady (talk) 21:28, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I was about to ask you the same thing. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:38, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The two terms are distinguished in the article on self-publishing. The distinctions are subtle.
 * Since the distinctions are subtle (and I don't know of any reliable source that tells which publishers belong to which category), one term is deemed to be pejorative, and both topics are covered in the same article, it seems sensible to me to use the less-offensive term to mollify a contributor who is insulted by the pejorative one. In my long experience working on articles about unaccredited universities, diploma mills, accreditation mills, etc., I've learned the value of avoiding defamatory labels (like "diploma mill" -- and, apparently, "vanity press") when a less offensive descriptor is available. --Orlady (talk) 21:49, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not at all sure that capitulation is the right strategy here. CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:00, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Hey, the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, which is a premier source of information on education scams, used to label a lot of institutions as "diploma mills." After they got sued for defamation, they stopped using that word. However, they still supply the same information -- they just use other words to communicate it.


 * There are similar issues with labeling somebody a fraudster or a murderer before they've been convicted of a crime. It may be incontrovertibly true, but Wikipedia should not be applying those labels before the courts have done so.


 * I don't consider the term "vanity press" to be necessarily pejorative -- there are people want to pay to have their work published, and vanity presses serve that market. However, I think it's pointless to engage in an edit war over a term that someone objects to when there's a substitute term that says essentially the same thing and is acceptable to the person who has the objection. --Orlady (talk) 04:06, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

grand
Hi CR, Infinitesimals happen to be more closely related to infinity than "very large numbers" that are linked here. Namely, infinitesimals and infinity are reciprocals of one another. If you look at Leibniz, d'Alembert, Bernoulli, Cauchy, etc. you will find infinity and infinitesimals mentioned in one breath. Where is the connection between very large numbers and infinity? There is certainly a connection between sequences that increase without bound, one the one hand, and infinity, on the other. The reciprocal of such a sequence is what becomes an infinitesimal in a typical construction thereof. Tkuvho (talk) 04:52, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Good point, I'd be happy to see the "large numbers" template removed. CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:09, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You are not really addressing my comment. All constructions of infinitesimals are infinitary constructions.  Most number systems that contain infinitesimals contain also infinite numbers, and vice versa.  What is your objection to making the connection exactly? Tkuvho (talk) 08:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That article is mainly about cultural, philosophical, and historical uses of the word "infinity". It's not a good place for a navbox on infinitesimals any more than it is a navbox on Indian philosophy (which is more prominent in the article than infinitesimals). CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Weakly prime
I see you edited A050249 and have a row for Weakly prime numbers at User:CRGreathouse/Tables of special primes. I guess you consider them notable and I agree but have a possible COI. Can you confirm support for an article at Category talk:Prime numbers. I think the name should be Weakly prime like http://mathworld.wolfram.com/WeaklyPrime.html and http://primes.utm.edu/glossary/xpage/WeaklyPrime.html. Do you think my 1000-digit weakly prime at would be worth mentioning after saying there are infinitely many? I don't think Wikipedia should claim it is the largest known although I make that claim at my own website. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I have no strong preference for the name. I call the objects described by the article Prime number "primes" and the objects described by this putative article "weak primes" but would tend to use the more formal name "Weakly prime numbers" if I was to write an article.  "Weakly prime" is discouraged by Wikipedia style guidelines (article titles should be nouns, not adjectives), so I think the reasonable choices are Weakly prime numbers and Weak prime.  (There's also some advantage to distinguishing it from the term Strong prime.)
 * As to notability, it's borderline but I'd err on the side of having an article. There are at least two papers on the subject, a MathWorld page, and an OEIS sequence—though the last is unfortunately quite a poor showing.
 * Certainly your prime would be worth mentioning in such an article, if it's created.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:40, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Weak prime usually means something else as the redirect shows. I haven't seen it used about weakly primes before although I just found a couple of cases with Google. "Prime" can be both noun and adjective. I see "Weakly prime" as a noun although "weakly" isn't usually applied directly to a noun. The Google search finds others using it as a noun. Category:Classes of prime numbers has lots of "prime" entries and no "prime number" entries except the list. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Using "weakly prime" as a noun is very bad English, not appropriate for Wikipedia. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Tax Incidence
I fully understand the point you make, that government spending is not equivalent to profit generation in a competetive free market. And that is precisley the purpose of my edit, to force the reader to think about the true reasons why taxation and government spending affect an economy. What you are saying runs to the real heart of the debate, but the article in its current form is too simple minded to be of any help and could be very misleading.

I have started a discussion of this point under Tax Talk... let's continue there.

Kind regards - Paul Paul Hield (talk) 07:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Legendrian
Hi CR,

I explained a week ago at Talk:Dehn plane that the geometry in question is in fact Legendrian. Nobody objected for a week. If anything, you should have moved this to Legendrian geometry. Tkuvho (talk) 16:41, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Trap for the unwary editor
Dear CRG, I have been editing mostly through the secure server, directly accessing articles by name. As a way of generally helping out, I have also looked at and occasionally edited articles based on various other tools, such as article ratings lists and the request to assist with backlogs. When I access an article in this manner, however, I am redirected to the nonsecure server on which I am not even logged in. Any edits made before logging in there show my IP address as an anonymous user. This has the effect of discouraging general helping out. Please bring this issue up among other administrators. It would be helpful for these tools, especially the backlog request, to continue one's login. Thanks. Oldtaxguy (talk) 05:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I feel as you do on the matter. For the time being you may consider using an extension like Secure Wiki (requires Greasemonkey) which will redirect you from the standard server to the secure site. CRGreathouse (t | c) 06:27, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Pirating of Wikipedia content for profit
I have encountered a publication being sold for $65 that contains content apparently all from Wikipedia. This sort of this tends to discourage editors like me. See User talk:Oldtaxguy. Can we do anything? Oldtaxguy (talk) 16:12, 25 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You may be interested in User:PrimeHunter/Alphascript Publishing sells free articles as expensive books. There are more than 100,000 now. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Criss-cross algorithm
Hi CRGreathouse!

You thought that the DYK topic was not especially accessible. Could you suggest what part(s) of the DYK topic seemed most problematic? Thanks! Kiefer.Wolfowitz (Discussion) 19:37, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I updated the DYK statement to be more accessible, as you know. I also replaced "a cube" with "Klee–Minty cube", about which I have just written a start-class article. Would you please consider looking and checking-off the updated DYK entry? Thanks again! Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 17:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The DYK nomination seems to have been skipped. Nobody has checked-off on the accessible nomination, yet! Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 16:11, 2 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I quoted your comment "look's good" and added a green check myself, noting that I did so in emboldened font. I apologize if this was improper. Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 16:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Fine with me. I'm not too familiar with DYK myself, but I did check the information there as best I was able. CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:37, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! It was moved to the prep stage. Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 14:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Simon Davis (mathematician)


The article Simon Davis (mathematician) has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * No signs of notability. Being the author of one article in an academic journal is nowhere near notability standards for academics. No independent coverage, no sourced biographical detail.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Magic words for first character?
 Chzz  ► 20:19, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Er, wait, no; my answer was incomplete. Hold on a bit.  Chzz  ► 20:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I'm sorry; I responded too quick - and removed it . I thought you didn't know about ABS. I hope you get an answer on the pump. Cheers,  Chzz  ► 01:31, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I did, actually: . CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

IP editor on Complexity economics
Hi CRGreathouse,

You have tried to be fair to the IP editor of Complexity economics. Maybe he would listen to you if you firmly warned him about edit warring. I certainly would (if you would warn me)!

Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 12:57, 16 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll look over the page history. But unless it's pretty flagrant (e.g., 3RR) it would probably be best for another admin to do it; I'd like to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
 * I think this conflict could actually end up creating a decent article, if it can attract a few more editors. As it stands there's a paucity of opinions involved; even if you and the IP editor stuck strictly to WP:V it seems unlikely that the multiplicity of views expressed in the economics literature would be properly represented, just because of the difficulty of going through all of what's said.  (I'm not suggesting, FWIW, that you aren't.)
 * I share your concerns about this editor, but even now I assume good faith on her/his behalf.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:20, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. Well, there seems to be some improvement, because the IP editor didn't revert me again. Let's hope that the editor adds some page references for the attributions. Citing some relevant articles is a good start for proper citations. In especially charitable mode, Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 22:52, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Reversion of Big O notation
When you first reverted my edit I elaborated my reasoning and responded to your edit summary on the talk page, and now you revert again, without any explanation whatsoever. If you insist that I am wrong, refute me on the talk page; if you simply revert again, I will report to administrators.--Netheril96 (talk) 06:34, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Fair enough, report away. You're quite wrong in assuming that everyone uses the Riemann sphere when using Big O -- in fact that is very rare in that context, unfortunate as that might be. CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:14, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It is clear stated that x is a real number.--Netheril96 (talk) 14:33, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, it's rare that the projective real line is used in Big O notation. (Surely that's less useful than the Riemann sphere, but I was giving benefit of the doubt...). CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * There is no ∞ in affinely extended real number system; only +∞ and -∞.--Netheril96 (talk) 14:49, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * So when the symbol ∞ is used in place of +∞, projective real number system is implied.--Netheril96 (talk) 14:57, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That's how I write them, and that makes sense, but that's not what's actually done in (most/almost all) reliable sources relating to Big O. They tend (very strongly) to define it over the extended reals, even if they blithely use the bare ∞ symbol. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:26, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That's because most sources dealing with Big O notation are only interested in its application in algorithms, where only natural numbers are concerned. But this section is specifically called Formal definition, so it should conform to the rigor in pure mathematical literature.--Netheril96 (talk) 04:02, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm only talking about mathematical sources (my background is mathematics rather than computer science). CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

In your mathematical books, is $$\displaystyle\lim_{x\to\infty}f(x)$$ also means $$\displaystyle\lim_{x\to+\infty}f(x)$$ ?--Netheril96 (talk) 04:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, precisely so. It's in Hardy & Wright, Mathematics of Computation (or at least all three of the papers I checked at random that had +∞, -∞, or ∞ at all), and both of the articles I found from Annals of Mathematics that actually used infinite limits at all. I found it in use by SIAM, and (to guard against English-language bias) le Journal de Théorie des Nombres de Bordeaux. In my quick search I found zero articles that used the at least one of ∞, +∞, and -∞ but did not use ∞ in a limit or other notation to refer strictly to +∞, and I found zero articles that used bare ∞ in a limit to denote a projective limit (though a number of the papers did use [complex] projective space in some way).  In fact, I found only two that used +∞ fairly consistently, and even those fell back to ∞ for some limits/sums/etc.
 * If I had to guess at a reason, it would be that limits to +∞ are common enough and risk of confusion is little enough that it's considered appropriate. Perhaps it's similar to the abuse of the = notation that is so common with big O.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, I concede. I didn't know that mathematical convention differs from country to country too (I'm a Chinese, and all Chinese books take ∞ as two-sided, except for improper integrals). --Netheril96 (talk) 03:23, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that's a fine convention, and I think that writing $$+\infty$$ as that rather than $$\infty$$ is a good idea&mdash;just like I feel about writing $$f\in O(x^2)$$ rather than $$f=O(x^2)$$. As soon as it catches on we can write about it in Wikipedia... until then, it's just a personal preference.
 * Good luck to you!
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Straw poll regarding lists of mathematics articles
In light of your participation in the discussion(s) regarding the treatment of disambiguation pages on the "Lists of mathematics articles" pages, please indicate your preference in the straw poll at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Straw poll regarding lists of mathematics articles. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Undid edit in Big O notation?
Hi, why did you undo my edit in the article Big O notation? Was is incorrect? Because what the article says now (and what it said before I edited it) seems to be wrong to me. Big O notation does not only describe the limiting behavior of a function as the article seems to say now. If my formulation was bad, maybe we can work out a new one? Otherwise I would like to know why the formulation that is currently in the article is right and why mine was wrong.

Until you have given me an explanation to why you reverted my edit I will undo your reverts in the article. --Kri (talk) 00:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * What you wrote doesn't even seem to be well-formed English: what is "limitation of the value" supposed to mean? I suppose you are not a native speaker, in which case I would be happy to try to help you find a wording that works better.
 * I suggest taking your suggestion, along with the reason you don't like the old version (this is not clear to me), to the Talk page of the article.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:19, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, maybe "restriction" would have been a better word to use. What I mean is just (and as I wrote in one of my comments when I edited the article) that I wonder if big O notation really has to do with limits? Isn't it for example possible to just write $$\scriptstyle f(x) = \mathcal{O}(g(x))$$ and say that it is valid for all x? In that case I guess it wouldn't be a limiting behavior as the first paragraph of the article suggests that it has to be? --Kri (talk) 17:44, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * No, it's inherently a limit (by definition!). If you want it to hold for a particular x you need to use ≤. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, I didn't know that it inherently was a limit. I didn't say that I want it to hold for a particular x, but for all real x. How do you write if you want to say that there exists a real M such that $$\scriptstyle |f(x)|\,\leq\,M|g(x)|,\,\forall\,x\,\in\,\mathbb{R}$$, don't you simply write $$\scriptstyle f(x)\,=\,\mathcal{O}(g(x))$$? --Kri (talk) 19:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * What I mean is that, if it is possible to write as I have written above, I would disagree with you that it's inherently a limit. So... ? Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any definition of big O notation in any math book of mine, only the definition in this article. --Kri (talk) 10:47, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Volume of hypercube
Hi CRGreathouse.

Thank you again for your explanations on Talk:Cardinality of the continuum. Regarding your edit on unit interval, can you please explain the reason why you don't think that the Lebesgue measure of an n-cube, with n > 3, can be also unambiguously and accurately called volume? The term volume seems to be the most commonly used synonym for the Labesgue measure, for instance, in the articles Lebesgue measure (see the introduction) and n-sphere. Moreover, the symbol Vn is used for the Labesgue measure of an n-ball. In these articles, the term "content", that you suggested in your edit summary, is not even mentioned. I am sure you are right that "content" is appropriate, as you seem to be a particularly accurate editor. However, I find it difficult to believe that "volume" is inappropriate in this case. Moreover, while in higher mathematics there's a distinction between a sphere and a ball, as far as I know there's no distinction between the surface of a cube and the region of space enclosed by it. Also, the expression "volume of a sphere" is widely used and accurate, as I am sure nobody (not even those who distinguish between sphere and ball) will ever confuse it with its surface.

I am asking this because I believe the sentence you edited would be incomplete without reference to hypercubes, as the n-dimensional hypercube is a region of the n-dimensional space which is mentioned later in the same paragraph. As I am sure you noticed, the structure of the paragraph is based on this correspondence:
 * Bounded: line segment, square, cube, hypercube
 * Unbounded: line, (2-D, 3-D,) n-dimensional Euclidean space

I am watching this page, so feel free to answer here, if you prefer. Paolo.dL (talk) 13:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * "Volume of a sphere" or "volume of a cube" would be appropriate. "Volume of a hypercube" would be inappropriate. If you prefer, n-volume would be acceptable, but "volume" refers to the three-dimensional measure just as "area" refers to the two-dimensional one. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The article on Lebesgue measure says: "Sets that can be assigned a volume are called Lebesgue measurable; the volume or measure of the Lebesgue measurable set A is denoted by λ(A)."


 * According to the editors who wrote this, and to all those who read that introduction and accepted it, not only "volume" is a generic term for any "Lebesgue measurable set", but it is even preferred to the word "measure". Paolo.dL (talk) 20:59, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * This sentence was alreacy in the article on 28 October 2005, when User:Oleg Alexandrov, a mathematician and expert editor who I know and trust, wrote this on Talk:Lebesgue measure: "What a pleasure was to read through this very well-written article! Good work!" Paolo.dL (talk) 21:13, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It's easy to miss a small part like that.
 * The use on Lebesgue measure is illustrative (and appropriate); the use on Unit interval, being specific to a non-three-dimensional polytope, is not.
 * If you feel that adding hypercube back in and replacing volume with an appropriate generalization would make the article less confusing or more complete, feel free to do so. I don't think it does either, but my feelings are not strong on the matter.  But we certainly should not use an inappropriate term just so we can shoehorn in an unnecessary example...!
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:20, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry, I do not want to use an inappropriate term.

"Illustrative"? I disagree. I am surprised that you deny the contradiction between what you say and what is repeatedly written in Lebesgue measure and n-sphere. Your comments are usually accurate, but this time I guess you didn't read with attention. In Lebesgue measure, "volume" is used as a synonym of Lebesgue measure for "any" Lebesgue measurable set. The article does not even mention the expression "n-dimensional volume", or "n-volume". λ(A) is called volume.

So, if you are right about the fact that "volume of hypercube" is incorrect (or ambiguous), then the above mentioned two articles need to be corrected.

Let me also give an opinion about the plausibility of what you stated. I know that "n-volume of an hypercube" is correct. However, if you omit n-dimensional and just say "volume of an hypercube", how can this be ambiguous? When you do not specify n, you implicitly refer to the n-volume. I am sure that everybody can undertand that. How can this be misleading? Authors use simplified terminology in the literature all the time, and as long as this is not ambiguous, they are welcome.

From Lebesgue measure:


 * Fix n &isin; N. A box in Rn is a set of the form
 * $$B=\prod_{i=1}^n [a_i,b_i] \, ,$$
 * where bi &ge; ai. The volume vol(B) of this box is defined to be
 * $$\prod_{i=1}^n (b_i-a_i) \, .$$

Paolo.dL (talk) 09:10, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

This reference confirms that "n" can be omitted in "our notation", when we speak of Lebesgue measure. Paolo.dL (talk) 09:33, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't have time to argue this at the moment; I'm traveling this week. The core mistake you make is replacing "volume" with "n-volume" and not "3-volume". CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * That's ok. Please feel free not to answer immediately or not to answer at all. You seem to ignore that "volume" is defined as a synonym of "n-volume" in two articles on Wikipedia, one of which is there at least since October 2005.


 * I think the authors of these articles are reliable. My rationale is that the expression "volume of an n-cube", with n>3, cannot be interpreted as "3-volume of an n-cube". It is impossible, as "3-volume of a 4-cube" would be incorrect terminology, similar to "area of a cube", "area of a ball", or "length of a square". So, it is quite safe to omit n- or n-dimensional, in this case.


 * It would be ambiguous to say "volume of a 2-cube", as in this case both "2-" and "3-volume of a square" make sense. However, that's not the context in which I used the word "volume". Paolo.dL (talk) 22:19, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Of course by the Wikipedia definition neither are reliable sources. CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:00, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Just by the way, there's nothing "incorrect" about talking about the 3-dimensional Lebesgue measure of a 4-cube, or the 2-d measure of an ordinary cube, for that matter. They just happen to be infinite.  That said, I have certainly run across the usage of "volume" as Paolo uses it, and I don't think there's anything really wrong with it, but it might be a little on the informal side for an encyclopedia. --Trovatore (talk) 10:14, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * CRGreathouse, by the Wikipedia definition you are not a reliable source either! And you are one source, while the editors who wrote (or double-checked) the two above mentioned articles are many. When you wrote that "volume" means "3-volume" that sounded excessively dogmatic. I did not think that you were totally wrong, but I supposed you were not aware of an alternative definition legitimately used by others.


 * Thank you Trovatore. So we have two articles on Wikipedia that only provide one of the possible definitions of "volume", and this is the "less formal" definition. The fact that the (n-1)-volume of an n-cube is by definition infinite confirms that the informal expression I used ("hypercube of volume 1") is not ambiguous, and easily understandable. But to make CRGreathouse happy, I won't insist about using the term "volume" to mean "n-volume", and possibly I will edit the two above mentioned articles to make them more encyclopedic. Paolo.dL (talk) 13:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Certainly I am not a reliable source!
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:00, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Good, this is the second time we reach an agreement of some sort. This time it was not easy, but certainly useful. Paolo.dL (talk) 08:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

N is a proper subset of R
Hi CRGreathouse,

your latest edit and the corresponding edit summary make no sense. N is a proper subset of R. It is absolutely irrelevant that it is not a subset of |R| × {1}. The lack of a bijection between N and R only means that |N| ≠ |R|. Not enough to prove that |N| > |R|. Paolo.dL (talk) 14:46, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * If you really want to get picky, you can say that |R| > |N| because there is a surjection from R to N but none from N to R. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:07, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * "Surjection" means nothing for beginners. "Contained" or "part of" is common language. Unless you can show that N is not a proper subset of R, I really cannot understand your refusal to accept my edit. The explanation you gave in your edit summary was absolutely irrelevant. Paolo.dL (talk) 15:31, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You can phrase surjection (or injection) differently, but don't confuse beginners by telling them that it's a proper containment. That makes it harder to understand the other examples where the containment is not proper but you still have a cardinal relation between the two. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:50, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * If it's accurate, how can it be confusing? Can you just trust me for once, and accept that, actually, the only source of confusion is mentioning the bijection (with or without mentioning the containment)? We could solve the problem (and stop an edit war) by not mentioning it. There's no need to give these details in the lead. Let's keep it simple. Paolo.dL (talk) 14:11, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * If I added a sentence that said "The sum of one and one is two.", that would be accurate and confusing. If I wrote that "ax^2 + bx + c = 0, and dy + c = 0, then $$x=\frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}$$" the added information on y is confusing.
 * But this example is worse than the others. In those cases the extraneous information is out of place, but can be discarded as such without too much trouble.  Here it seems related, so this cases misconceptions about when sets have cardinalities that can be compared.  This makes it seem like it's possible only when there is containment, which is quite wrong!
 * So you make the paragraph longer and more confusing for novice readers. It's worse for advanced readers and worse for beginners... quite a feat.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:17, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

You are worried about a very unlikely possibility of generalization, due to a perfectly accurate statement. You are not worried about making the statement inaccurate (by deleting part of it, as you did).

The unlikely generalization is that a comparison between sets is "possible only when there is containment". You are assuming that our readers are stupid. I do not agree. And even if a few readers were stupid, I wouldn't care about them. Stupid people do not care a damn about the cardinality of the continuum. In the next paragraph, we compare sets such as R and Rn, so there's no way that readers with more than one neuron in their brain can deduce what you are afraid of. I am only willing to assume that they don't know bijections and set theory.

The inaccurate statement claims that |R| > |N| as there is a bijection between R and N.

I suggest a solution: let's completely delete the inaccurate statement. This, believe me, would make the intro much easier to read for beginners. Moreover, we have a place, immediately after the lead (the section "intuitive argument") where we can explain that two sets are defined to be equinumerous if there exists a bijection between them, etc. etc..

To reach an agreement, we need a compromise. Consider what we did for the last paragraph. The edit war in the process was hard, but the compromise on which we agreed was better than any of our previous individual proposals. Paolo.dL (talk) 14:22, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Now you're arguing for making the article inaccessible to beginners. I've seen many people make the mistake I mentioned, and I carefully chose my words to avoid giving that wrong impression. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:23, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Not at all. I have been always (and not only "now") arguing for making it simpler, and hence more accessible. In my edit summaries, I insisted not to mention at all bijections. In my previous comment above, I meant exactly the same:
 * |R| > |N| as there is a bijection between R and N
 * Actually, I wrote something else: "let's completely delete the inaccurate statement", but I meant "let's completely delete the part that makes the statement inaccurate". I apologize for this mistake.


 * If you have experience with beginners, then you know the first rule is not to clog your statements (especially the introductory ones) with information that appear simple to you, while it is difficult for them to digest. What I propose is that we first say, in the intro:
 * |R| > |N|
 * |R| is equal to the unit interval etc
 * |R| is equal to aleph one
 * This is already difficult to digest. Let's keep it simple! Then, in the article, we give details.
 * Paolo.dL (talk) 17:30, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * We should absolutely not not NOT say in the intro that |R|=$$\aleph_1$$. --Trovatore (talk) 21:23, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Are you joking? :-) That list was just a short summary of what is already written in the intro. It was not meant to be accurate. I have an high esteem of you and I have always enjoied reading your wise comments, but this is CRGreathouse's talk page. There has been an edit war between me and him about the last paragraph of the intro. As I wrote above, in my opinion that paragraph, as a result of our final agreement, is now perfect. Thus, CRGreathouse knows that I am aware of CH! I am very surprised that you suspect I am not! (Do you really think I am so ignorant?) My point is that the current intro contains an inaccurate sentence at the beginning of the second paragraph. That sentence would be fixed if we deleted its second part. Schematically, it would look like this:


 * $$ |\mathbb R| > |\mathbb N|$$ as there is a bijection between R and N

If we did this, the current intro will look schematically like this:
 * $$ \mathfrak c = |\mathbb R| = 2^{|\mathbb N|} > |\mathbb N|$$ (we do not introduce the proof)
 * $$\mathfrak c = |(a,b)| = |\mathbb R| = |\mathbb R^n|$$ (we do not introduce the proof)
 * CH implies that $$\mathfrak c = \aleph_1$$ (we do not expain in which models CH or ~CH holds)

To know how it would exactly look, just delete from current lead the second part of the above mentioned inaccurate sentence. In short, I suggest, and I have always been suggesting to keep it simple.

With regards, Paolo.dL (talk) 09:10, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I did not mean to offend you, Paolo. But a lot of the popularizations do simply assert, without qualification, that the cardinality of R is $$\aleph_1$$.  I could not be sure you didn't mean we should follow them.  --Trovatore (talk) 20:10, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think Trovatore is saying that it's not directly relevant to the article, and shouldn't be mentioned in the lede. I tend to agree. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:52, 17 June 2011 (UTC)


 * |R| is a cardinal number, so I think it is relevant to say that it may be the second one. For sure, we need to say it simply and briefly, as we did. Mentioning ZFC, for instance, would be far fetched. Moreover, the lead is supposed to summarize the article, and the article contains a section about CH.


 * By the way, we discussed the new lead in the talk page. Potatoswatter inserted the paragraph about CH in his proposal, based on which I rewrote the lead. Thus, this page is not the most appropriate place for a discussion about deleting the last paragraph of the lead. Paolo.dL (talk) 20:23, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Small change to your article on prime number classes
Hi, I made a small change to User:CRGreathouse/Tables of special primes (see this diff). Regards. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 11:00, 4 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I did change the bound back to log log n since log denotes the natural log already (e.g. for Wall–Sun–Sun primes, or see Mills primes for an example of another base) on this page (as with most math pages).
 * I don't suppose you know anything about emirps? I'd love a cite for those.  I think they're not quite as straightforward, probably needing logarithmic density or something similar rather than a natural density analogue (since otherwise the first-digit dependence leads to gaps large enough to cause the latter to fluctuate).
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:16, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Please use edit summaries
Please describe your edits with an edit summary. This is particluarly important when you undo a previous edit, as it is quite unpolite to revert an edit without carefully explaining the reason.

By the way, I did not answer your latest comment on Talk:Cardinality of the continuum as it is too generic and hence irrelevant to the discussion. Your comments about specific statements are (and have been always) welcome and much more useful. Paolo.dL (talk) 16:21, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Which edit are you talking about, my reversion? That was a deletion of another user's comment (against policy).  I just rolled it back, which doesn't give me the option to give an edit summary. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:52, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


 * No it was not a deletion. You can always choose between being polite and being unpolite. Paolo.dL (talk) 22:05, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


 * In this edit you removed a paragraph by Rschwieb.  I put it back.  I wasn't being unpolite; I was just following WP:TPO. Summary: don't edit other people's messages on Talk pages without their permission. CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:21, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


 * In my opinon being polite means explaining your edit, as you did right now. I explained my edit detailedly in my edit summary: Rschwieb's message was addressed directly to me and by no means it was relevant with the discussed topic, or with the article. I also explained that I did not simply remove it. I moved it to both Rschwieb's and my personal talk pages, to be able to answer it. By explaining your edits with an edit summary, you may also avoid an edit war, especially when you edit according to a Wikipedia policy, as in this case. Paolo.dL (talk) 22:56, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps you just weren't familiar with the rollback feature, otherwise you would have understood that its use is quite routine in cases like this.
 * But it's not acceptable, under policy, to remove another's post on a Talk page, even if you intend to answer it elsewhere. I didn't call you out for that, I just put it back.  Some admins would have given you a warning!
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:51, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I never wrote you were wrong. I wrote you were unpolite. A rollback without explanation is unpolite (indeed, I just read that it is typically used against vandalism). If a rollback with explanation is impossible, then a rollback is unpolite. Routine may be unpolite.

On the other hand, a warning may be politely written. When I undo, I always explain the reason why I undo. Some people adds a polite edit summary even when they revert vandalism. Paolo.dL (talk) 01:06, 7 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Shall I give you a (polite) warning now, or would you consider yourself sufficiently informed by this discussion? CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:07, 7 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I already knew WP:TPO. Even though I disagree with you on the interpretation of that policy (which includes an exception which makes my edit legitimate), I accepted it. Although mild refactoring of talk pages is sometimes legitimate and useful, I believe it is unpolite, and as a consequence against the spirit of WP:TPO, to try and impose a refactoring when somebody else disagrees, as you did. That's why I wrote, in my edit summary "Feel free to undo". In other words, I believe that fairness, politeness, respect for the opinion of others, are the principles that inspire all WP policies.
 * In sum, I never wrote you were wrong. I wrote you acted unpolitely. The title of this section properly summarizes what I meant to suggest you: "Please use edit summaries". I felt the need to give you such a suggestion because that was not the first time you reverted an edit without explaining the reason with an appropriate edit summary. Paolo.dL (talk) 10:06, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Fibonacci–Wieferich primes / Wall–Sun–Sun primes
Hi, another thing I noted about your prime number classes draft: Currently it has an entry for Fibonacci–Wieferich primes and one for Wall–Sun–Sun primes. I thought Fibonacci-Wieferich prime was just another name for a Wall–Sun–Sun prime, i.e. the two names describe the same subset of the prime numbers (see eg or ). Please let me know what you think. Regards. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 23:09, 6 July 2011 (UTC)


 * How embarrassing! Thanks for pointing that out. CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:45, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Input requested
Hi, your input would be welcome at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cardinality_of_the_continuum#Moving_the_.22intuitive_argument.22_section That debated section should be moved at least, but I am leaning towards removal. Rschwieb (talk) 15:44, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Sieve of Eratosthenes code removals
Now that the article has no Euler's sieve implementation; no comparative exposition nor even a mention of Trial division; no one-liner for unbounded sieve (how's a one-liner a "code repository"?); HOW EXACTLY does it make that article better? Removing code is one thing; carelessly removing all the discussions that went along with it, all references and links, is an altogether different thing entirely.

Would you kindly spend your time in restoring what you've deleted and putting that article into a coherent state again. Sir. WillNess (talk) 17:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I like source code, being a programmer. But Wikipedia isn't the place for it.  (I'm not the first one to remove your code from that article, either.)
 * Might I suggest a place like Rosetta Code for your SoE implementation?
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:16, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * More explicitly: you could add your code as an alternate Haskell implementation here. CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:40, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * you've broken that article. U removed all the discussions accompanying that code; and you've left references referring to others that you removed. You've left paragraphs hanging without context. An d you were careless about it.
 * It is not about having "my" code. It is about having "any" code, and discussion, and links, and refs. THere was a comparative exposition of Eratps/Eulers/Turners. You've removed it. You have NOT provided ANY replacement for it.
 * It was NOT very helpful. Your contribution to the article was to butcher it, under guise of enforcing policy that was NOT violated anyway, as there was no whole executable code there, just pseudo-code snippets in Haskell notation. Don't like Haskell, put in pseudo-code, equally short, succinct, clear and expository as the one that you deleted. Anything else is licensed vandalism, in my book. WillNess (talk) 08:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I like Haskell very much, thank you. But there was too much code in the article before you added yours. CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:48, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Sieve of Eratosthenes

 * Please engage in discussions on the article's talk page, not in comments of your edits. Thank you.
 * Are you saying using blogs as sources is OK? You continue to edit disruptively, without discussing it first on the talk page and uilding up a consensus. Could you please correct this. Thanks. WillNess (talk) 15:06, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I find your editing disruptive. Several editors have emailed me to tell me that they feel similarly (including at least one who has not edited the article recently).  Your accusations seem to have little basis considering the amount of discussion I've made on the Talk page. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Why wouldnt they email to me too? I would certainly prefer to be told when I'm doing something inappropriately so I could correct it. Why the anonymity?
 * As to your supposed participation in talk page discussions, u'v got to be kidding me. I havent seen a response from you that refers to any of the arguments I raised. U just do what u please on the page. Thats exactly what drove me mad with u. And I'm not the first one either, judging from your talk page. WillNess (talk) 05:43, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * To show my edits as disruptive, please provide one instance where I disregarded consensus, ignoring the ongoing discussion on talk page. You can't. Oh wait that's you that does that. Making wholesale removal without vetting it first on talk page is what constitutes disruptive editing. Read up on that. WillNess (talk) 06:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I can't speak for their motivations; they wrote me. (I prefer to keep communications on-wiki).  It's not surprising to me, though; I must admit I find talking with you extremely grating.  Your haughty attitude makes cooperation difficult, and you've rebuffed all my attempts to discuss the article productively.  For the time being I'm hoping that the new contributors to the article will stick around and the changes will render most of your issues moot.  So far I've been rather pleased with the direction the article has gone with the help of Gandalf61, Michael Hardy, Salix alba, and Justin W Smith.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Haughty? I find your attitude haughty. And even just now. You accused me of disruptive editing (above), this has a very specific definition. I asked you please provide one instance to support this claim. You, again, just ignore it and leave it without response.
 * Funny thing, perception. For me, your edits were unilateral, harmful to the page's content; I left tons of messages on the talk page which most all went unresponded, and you talk about "your attempts to discuss the article". Funny, that. I felt ignored and pushed aside, that's exactly what drove me over the edge. You say you didn't intend it that way?
 * Have no fear, I made all "my issues" moot, I've removed all of my stuff, and I don't even get credit for that, huh :L . And no, I didn't felt forced to it by any of the people you mention above, just by your attitude. All credit goes to you. Michael Hardy's and Gandalf61's edits were all to the point, no wanton razor-wielding on their part, and Salix was here just to call for civility, which is almost always a good thing (except when ignoring the other definition of incivility, the one WP:CIVIL gives as pushing others etc. U can read up on that). WillNess (talk) 16:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * As far as consensus goes, I count at least four editors who support my approach (incl. dmcq, David Eppstein, Justin W Smith) and none who support yours. I could take this as carte blanche to edit without regard to your preferences, but I'm hoping to involve you in the process.  I know you're trying to help out, even though I largely think your contributions so far have been less than helpful.  I'd really like to work together on this. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What is my approach? I want to have extra stuff in the article for a casual reader to have pointers for further exploration, "moot" points in the implementation and complexity explained, shown in the open. We had a bit of that, based on Haskell code snippets; all I asked you was to replace it with something new, re-written better, but until that's available, keep the old stuff. Isn't that what you called for, with that sourcing issue? WillNess (talk) 16:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * As for my "less than helpful contributions", here's one: I rephrased the algo description in terms of counting up in steps of p, when the article had for years the wrongly worded version, talking of "striking the multiples out from the list", which was highly confusing.
 * Do you find the above contribution:
 * Extremely helpful
 * Helpful
 * Less than helpful
 * Not helpful at all
 * ? WillNess (talk) 17:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * On that scale, "less than helpful" fits best. It did add a bit of useful information but on the whole disimproved the article IMO.  But I'm not sure how helpful it is to go through edits and code them.  I'd rather have you and everyone else just do what they can to improve the article and collaboratively decide how to fix it.  You've changed parts of the article I or others wrote that you didn't like, and I've done the same with material from you and others.  It's a good process, overall. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * What you mean "on the whole"? That wasn't the question. I'm talking about the change to the algorithm description that I've made. Not anything else. Please do not change the subject.
 * Sorry to have to say this to you, and please do not take it as a sign of disrespect, but you're full of it. The description was plain wrong; it was highly confusing. I know, because I was going at the time through the incomprehensible ONeill article, and this page didnt help, at all, in its state then (actually this was a year earlier, but the wrong description was there for years, under your watch).
 * I fixed it, plain and simple. If you don't understand it, you don't understand the algorithm. What "edits"? What you mean "code them"? It was wrong; after half a day of my edits, it was fixed. I gave you a simple link into page history. What's so hard about that? Here's the direct diff for your perusal, and I repeat, I'm not talking about whole page; I'm asking about my contribution to the algorithm description. Have a look at it.
 * Secondly, if I changed parts of the page to your disliking, you should have told me - us all - the world - about it in the talk page. That's what WP:CONSENSUS says. Did you? Did I ignore any of you arguments? No. And no, it is not a good process to make big edits unilaterally. The proper procedure is, you post your suggestion on talk page, you wait for replies, you engage in discussion, a consensus is or isn't built, then you make your big edit. Like removing a big chunk of an article, even if you were positively sure it has no place there. In fact, after Justin W Smith did just that, and I reverted his wholesale removal, I posted a section about my "Reasons to keep Haskell code". I waited for replies, none came. (correction: no replies to my answers to his reply came). As it turns out, according to said WP:CONSENSUS no replies means CONSENSUS was with the last poster. That would be me, at that point in time.
 * So you buddy, and I mean it with all sympathy, you were in breach of that policy. But nevermind, all is behind us now, it doesn't matter. Still, I'd suggest you revise your answer to the above 4-choice question. Sincerely, WillNess (talk) 21:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't feel compelled to follow your orders, especially when I'm happy with the way the other editors are fixing the article. Cheers! CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You don't want to be fair? What if you made an error, inadvertently, don't you want to correct it? WillNess (talk) 22:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I said nothing of the sort. CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not about saying, it's about doing. Of course no one can force you to be fair, or to acknowledge a fact, clear as day. But this is all pointless, it seems. All the best. WillNess (talk) 23:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Count of perfect numbers
After a post at Talk:Perfect number I have partially reverted an edit by you, but I haven't seen the source. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:52, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Any problem??
Dear CRGreathouse, you seem to have a serious problem with some Polynomials, what is the matter ??, relax! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.225.243.100 (talk) 02:08, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I love polynomials and their various generalizations like Laurent series.
 * Do I know you? Not that I mind  talking about polynomials to people I don't know, but it's a bit odd.
 * CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:54, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Shapley–Folkman lemma at FAC
Hi CR!

The article, initiated by David Eppstein, has received many helpful reviews. The FA project would benefit from mathematicians' insights, from simple support/oppose judgments, to short copy-editing volunteering, to more ambitious commenting/editing.

(I left this at the Math & Econ projects, but felt you deserve a special invitation.)

Best regards, Kiefer .Wolfowitz 22:59, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Update: There are 3 supports (by non-mathematicians) and no opposes. Cheers, Kiefer .Wolfowitz 10:08, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Outcomes of RfCs
Just thought you might like to know, the outcome of an RfC is never a sanction. It's purpose is to discuss behaviour which some users think is problematic, to see what the opinion of the wider community is. Normally either the user being discussed decides to make a few changes to their editing style, or the users proposing are advised by the rest of the community that it's not really a problem. In cases were the RfC uncovers serious behavioural problems, other steps are necessary before a sanction can be imposed. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't disagree, I'm just pointing out that "so what": even if the 'accusations' are true they don't amount to much. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * They are clearly enough to trouble some editors, and result in incidents at WP:ANI, and they haven't stopped or the RfC would be unnecessary. It's clear that Kiefer's main interest is contributing in a very significant way to articles, and if he stuck with that there wouldn't be a problem at all. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Look, you gave your outside view and I gave mine. I think that nothing there rises to the level of being actionable. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Unwritten Wikipedia Policy
Hi CRGreathouse!

While I appreciate your support, I have come to realize that I have been violating an important albeit so-far unwritten Wikipedia-policy.

I have been having a deja vu experience all over again, but now I understand why: I recognize that I have been transgressing Jante Law, which is familiar to anybody who has lived for a half year in Sweden or Norway: Jantelagen has ten rules:
 * Don't think you're anything special.
 * Don't think you're as good as us.
 * Don't think you're smarter than us.
 * Don't convince yourself that you're better than us.
 * Don't think you know more than us.
 * Don't think you are more important than us.
 * Don't think you are good at anything.
 * Don't laugh at us.
 * Don't think anyone cares about you.
 * Don't think you can teach us anything.

An eleventh rule is:


 * 11. Don't think that there aren't a few things we know about you.

Those who transgress this unwritten 'law' are regarded with suspicion and some hostility, as it goes against communal desire in the town to preserve harmony, social stability and uniformity. Jante Law has never been adopted officially in Nordic countries, although it is enforced with glee on a daily basis. Why should Wikipedia be different? Kiefer .Wolfowitz 14:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Number theory
Hi Greathouse -

Do you want to take a look at the new version of Number theory? Further contributions would be welcome. Garald (talk) 15:40, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll look if I have a chance. Thanks for the heads-up. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Talkback
Replied at my talkpage. Sorry, I believe my first reply was complete nonsense. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 14:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I initiated a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:15, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

WP Economics in the Signpost
The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Economics for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 07:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

New article
Your reply about too big to fail was helpful at WikiProject economics. I created the article Brown–Kaufman amendment, it's relatively small, and I thought it could benefit from you taking a look. I was planning on submitting it to DYK. Thanks. Jesanj (talk) 04:14, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * It's interesting, I'll see what I can do. The only thing that sticks out as needing to change is the use of the metonym "Wall Street" in the editorial voice; beyond that and some stylistic edits it looks good (though as with all stubs it could use more content). CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:23, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I made that editorial voice edit, thanks. Jesanj (talk) 04:49, 6 December 2011 (UTC)