User talk:Charles Matthews/Archive 6

WikiProject Countering systemic bias
Good to see you have signed up at this project. I was wondering if you'd have the time and interest to run your eye over H.D. to suggest further improvements? Filiocht 13:03, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

I have a biography by Janice S. Robinson - do you know if this is reliable? I'm actually quite interested in expanding Bryher, to include projects such as her literary magazine. Also, in tracking down some of the minor Imagists. On the whole I don't think I can do much with criticism; just journalistic who/what/when etc.

Charles Matthews 14:06, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The Robinson is fine, but a bit focused on lit crit rather than the life. Bryher certainly needs work, and I'll try to help out. Maybe a Category:Imagists would be a good idea. Again, I'd like to help on that. Filiocht 14:17, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)
 * In fact, I've just created two stubs: Skipwith Cannell and F. S. Flint. More soon, I hope. Filiocht 14:56, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

Hilaire Belloc
I rather resent the wholesale deletion of my material on Belloc. Most of what was eliminated was pure factual content. Isn't the purpose of an encyclopaedia to cover comprehensively. My model is the older versions of the Britannica where scholars wrote comprehensively and provided a viewpoint on the subject. Your interventions are to surpress knowledge, not add to it.I took some time and did quite a bit of research to do these additions.Polycarp

Regarding your anit-semite addition to Hilaire Belloc. From a scan of biographies of the man, it would seem that his anti-semitism could be set in a greater context. From http://www.freedompartyuk.net/public/standardbearers/belloc.html
 * Any charge of anti-Semitism needs to be considered in the context of Belloc&#8217;s outspoken opposition to the excesses of Hitler&#8217;s regime. In 1936, Belloc produced a heavily revised second edition of The Jews, condemning the Nazi persecution of Germany&#8217;s Jews. So far did Belloc go in his opposition to Hitlerism that his friend GK Chesterton wrote at this time: &#8220;I am quite ready to believe now that Belloc and I will die defending the last Jew in Europe.&#8221;

Or is this just whitewashing? jericho4.0 16:49, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

He was, by all accounts, an anti-Semite of the French anti-Dreyfusard type; and from very young (Wilson's biography attributes it to his military service in the French Army). In any case he was quite rabidly anti-Semitic before the Hitler time, and there seems to be little dispute about this. The context, such as it is, is to do with Liberal anti-imperial politics, the Marconi scandal and so on.

Charles Matthews 16:56, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Speedy on taut manifold, etc.
I'll be the first to admit I know nothing for nothing about Mathematics; but it's good that the typographical hash was just a garble requiring someone like me to come along and alert you to it! As for the other substubs, though, as things stood when I read them, they did read like definitions. You might want to write something a bit fuller right from the git-go; I'm not the only guy out there who reacts this way. Best, Bill 18:20, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, we have clean-up for unclear articles. I think you should either stick closer to the speedy deletion guidelines, or back off from mathematics if you can't interpret what was at least one quite meaningful formula. A stub notice is appropriate for a technical term being defined.

Charles Matthews 18:24, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Gromov-Hausdorff conergence
Could you remove this article? Tosha 20:05, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Move(with delete) Logical programming
I've had a suggestion up for over a month to move logical programming (a close to unused term) back to logic programming (the term everyone in the field uses).

It was moved back in May 2002 by User:Boleslav Bobcik without stated reasons, but I would guess for the reason that it sounds nicer as a programming paradigm. I'm not sure what the right way to do this is: maybe a VFD for logical programming & then a move, or maybe just do without discussion (it breaks no links)? I'm asking you because you are the admin I know best/respect most; I know it's a little outside your field (though you have edited the page in the past). Charles Stewart 16:13, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You're quite right - I've just moved it back and tidied up. Charles Matthews 16:46, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks Charles Stewart 17:14, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Question you might be well suited to answer
Reference_desk, thanks it's way out of my league to even decide if it is a valid question. - Taxman 16:28, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Done what I can. Charles Matthews 16:40, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sorry
Apologies for the mistake on Fundamental domain. I just found another similar case and realised it was deliberate, but you had already fixed the previous - thanks :) -- sannse (talk) 13:59, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

't's OK - you'd need to be a mathematician to know. Charles Matthews 14:21, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Category recursion theory
I merged the Category recursion theory into the category computability. Could you please (as an admin) delete the old recursion theory category ? MathMartin 14:13, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ah - that might be a bit contentious, though? There seems to be a process, anyway. I'll find the page. Charles Matthews 14:15, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Try Categories for deletion. Charles Matthews 14:17, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, I moved my request there.MathMartin 16:50, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Liouville's Theorem aka Liouville equation
We seem to have a lot of common material between these two entries, quite a bit of it 'rather beside the point', (at least from a physicist's point of view)

From a stat mechanics point of view I understood the key step to be that the total time derivative of the density of points in phase space (ie along a particle trajectory) was zero - this is not a self-evident statement (see say Goldstein, Classical Mechanics p268, or say http://astron.berkeley.edu/~jrg/ay202 for methods of proof - I have added a simpler indicative method, considering one p & q only, based on my college notes from'67!) and it needs Hamilton's relations between the p's & q's. (Otherwise, any old choice of variables could apparently be taken and they can't!).

The author of Liouville equation in particular (which I've only just found) takes a statement of the final Theorem (total d/dt=0) as the given starting point to derive another statement which may be mathematically correct and useful, but which carries little additional physical import I think.

I invite your comments on how we rationalise things whilst keeping all relevant information. Linuxlad 20:03, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We've certainly had some problems with this in the past: see for example Talk:Liouville's theorem (Hamiltonian). I wonder if I can see my way through those. On the whole it would be best to have things consolidated, at Liouville's theorem (Hamiltonian); and statistical mechanics applications mentioned there (I guess) but with a dedicated main article, too.

The issues seem to be:


 * mathematicians will arrive from symplectic topology and expect a compatible treatment
 * there is a major difficulty with derivations that appear to be circular (the background case H = 1 can't be derived from the theorem if it is also a premise
 * relatively minor is tha fact that the probability measure/distribution idea is not always normalised to have total mass 1 - my guess is that this is not really key, more a matter of language
 * and there is interest in the quantum case, too, but that must be kept from being circular, too.

So, someone like you might be able to pick the bones of this. Judging by the Noether's theorem page, there is scope for a radical style clash on this, leaving an article that looks very badly dressed ...

Charles Matthews 20:20, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Charles

Well I may try to rise to the challenge, though with considerable trepidation.

Splitting into theoretical physics and pure(r) mathematics sections, like the Hamiltonian mechanics article, would certainly be a help. But that section also shows some of the issues which plague unifying the two disciplines - the maths section there apparently relates the _total_ time derivative of &rho to the Poisson bracket, rather than the partial time derivative. (This may (??) be a nicety to workers in symplectic spaces, but the difference is of the essence of the trade to physicists and fluid mechanics!)

Bob aka Linuxlad 11:13, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Go ahead - like they say, be bold! I've just been looking at the 'symplectomorphisms' section on symplectic topology, tidying it up and actually making the link (which wasn't in place before). It looks to me like the pure-mathematical proof is essentially one or two lines, given an exterior derivative formula that may not be properly written down here yet. So, this leaves great scope for a discursive treatment from the physical side. By the way, the point you raise about total derivatives may just be bypassed by the exterior derivative notion (which carries along its implied variable set); anyway that's my take on that one. Charles Matthews 11:56, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well I've hacked LT (Hamiltonian) as much as I want to for a bit - if you want to beef up the 'Mathematical expression' bit (or indeed any other) please feel free.

I have left a note on Liouville equation suggesting a redirect in due course. Bob aka Linuxlad 22:23, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC) ('There _are_ nails in that bridge I was sad to learn')

Ah, it turns out that Liouville equation will need disambiguation, since there is another kind of PDE that goes by that name (one of the back links has it). Charles Matthews 22:53, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've looked again at the Maths section of Hamiltonian mechanics, Goldstein's chapter 8 at the ready. If these expressions (relating partial and convective rates of change of general f (?) to the Poisson bracket with the Hamiltonian etc) mean what a physicist would take them to mean, then there are 3 disparities - see that section's discussion page for detail

Later - I've now edited these and also provided a classical Poisson bracket expression

Linuxlad 23:36, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This article had been fairly stable (though not good) for over 3 months now - but recently Denevans has has added a substantial new section (ostensibly on phase space, which is really covered elsewhere; but also dragging in lots of exciting stuff which should really come later); and he has also edited substantially another one (physical interpretation) - so it is now more like half a proof, (but that is already given twice, later). I'd like to significantly amend some of his material (and indeed have started to do so) and would probably like to total move the major section he's added, but haven't yet managed to contact him.

In a way it reads like he's just dumped down the first 3 pages of his college notes (But then don't we all!!) without trying to integrate into the article as a whole.

I'm tempted to just revert, but feel that's a bit selfish, and in any case there is useful stuff there, just not where he's put it.

Could you offer an opinion, please. Linuxlad 21:31, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Steve Morse
I don't understand your edit summary for your edit to Steve Morse:"second time of asking ... see 'Steve morse' " Is there some history I'm missing here? --Phil | Talk 08:36, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

I had copyedited it once as Steve morse when User:Rmhermen redirected it to Steve Morse, rather than moved it; meaning I had to do it again somehow.

Charles Matthews 09:10, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Invite
Hi

I'm posting this to invite you to participate in WP:LCOTW, a project you may be interested in. Please consider nominating and/or voting for a suitable article there. Filiocht 12:43, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

WP:LCOTW
Filiocht 10:41, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Exponential topics
Hi, I've replaced your List of exponential topics with the Category:Exponentials and listed it for deletion. --Smack 19:19, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm going to contest this vigorously. It is dangerous nonsense to suggest that any category supersedes a list. This is a fallacy. Charles Matthews 19:23, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mr Quickdraw
Thanks for the lightning-fast cats to my recent computer science entries. --Minority Report 22:49, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

My username
I've taken the points that you (and others of the same opinion) made to heart, and decided that it is in my best interests to change my name.

Because my attachment to this name makes it so difficult for me to choose a new one, I decided to make it a community event. If you want, I hope that you'll participate in my Name the Admin Candidate Contest. Thanks!

ClockworkTroll 18:39, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good for you! Charles Matthews 20:28, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Civil war in Côte d'Ivoire
Thanks! needs to be in current events. The fr folks did well .. Wizzy 23:18, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Go Quotations Page
Hi Charles. I was browsing the List of Go topics page you maintain an interest in, and saw that Go famous quotations was not yet created, so I created it and put a single quote into. This was then speedily slotted for speedy deletion. If you are interested, perhaps you would like to add some and/or discuss it on the talk page. Thanks for looking. Hu 08:48, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

Arbitration Elections
You may remember that I coordinated the previous two elections, for the board, and for the arbitration committee. I am willing to coordinate this election as well, and have asked Elian to assist. However, we would like to have the support of the candidates to do this. Do you support us coordinating the election? My policy is to be entirely neutral, and to ensure this, I will not be voting myself (I didn't vote in previous elections either). All results will be announced following the final count. Please answer on my talk page. Danny 01:02, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Bias
I'd like your opinion at Requests for arbitration. Thanks. Chameleon 12:24, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)