User talk:RileyRevy

Important Notice
&#x222F; WBG converse 05:05, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Important Notice
&#x222F; WBG converse 05:05, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Plimpton 322
Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia. I have a few comments about your two edits to Plimpton 322. You have changed the characterization of the three works mentioned in the third paragraph of the article (which means yours was certainly not a minor edit according to Wikipedia's definition). Previously, Robson (2002) and Conway and Guy (1996) were characterized as "popular works" and Robson (2001) as "technical". You have moved Conway and Guy (1996) over to the "technical" category. I have not seen that article. Do you know for a fact that that is a fair characterization? "Technical" definitely fits Robson (2001), which contains detailed arguments about cuneiform, Akkadian grammar and terminology, Old Babylonian reciprocal calculations, and many other topics. Is Conway and Guy (1996) a work in the same vein? Conway and Guy are eminent mathematicians and also gifted popularizers. They are not historians, however, so it would surprise me if their article contained that sort of technical argumentation.

Second, Robson (2002) does not say that the tablet "consists of reciprocals". (Adding this is also not a minor edit.) There were such things as tables of reciprocals in Old Babylonian mathematics, numerous examples of which have been found. Plimpton 322 is not one of those. Even if, as now seems nearly certain in light of Friberg (2007), the numbers on the tablet were computed using reciprocal pairs, there is no meaningful sense in which the tablet consists of reciprocals. And Robson certainly doesn't say that reciprocals constitute the "nature and purpose" of the tablet. What she does say in the 2001 article is that the tablet is most likely concerned with "some sort of right-triangle problems".

Finally, I'm not sure whether you realized that in adding Lamb's blog post as a reference you were whacking a hornets' nest. If not, you should have a look at the article's talk page as well as the two talk page archives. (Lamb's post is discussed there.) I don't have a horse in this race, but a determined majority, overruling the complaints of a vocal minority, have decided that the paper Lamb is criticizing is not to be included in the article. I suspect that bringing in a mention of Mansfield and Wildberger's article, even if only indirectly via Lamb, and even if only to criticize it, is not going to go over very well. Will Orrick (talk) 15:30, 2 June 2019 (UTC)


 * As I expected it would be, the reference to Lamb's blog post was removed shortly after I posted. I have also reverted the other change, as I believe it mischaracterizes the sources.  I am, however, willing to discuss. Will Orrick (talk) 12:54, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Subhash kak
You need to note your objections to the current text and why it is not NPOV, using secondary reliable sources. Best, &#x222F; WBG converse 15:45, 16 June 2019 (UTC)