Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A curious identity involving binomial coefficients


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. John254 07:10, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

A curious identity involving binomial coefficients

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The notability of the combinatorial identity is very questionable. The title itself hints that the article does not contain encyclopedic content. Leon math (talk) 23:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. If this were a discussion on what to choose for the priority field of the math rating banner, I would put it very low. And this is far from enough to establish notability for Sun himself. But published journal papers by three independent researchers or groups of researchers on the same thing, the two not by sun both mentioning the "curious identity" in their titles, is enough for notability of a mathematical result to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:29, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It is apparently discussed by three independent sources if we can believe the references. Unfortunately I am not well-versed in mathematics. I suggest this should be brought to the eyes of a maths wikiproject so the experts can hash this out. - Mgm|(talk) 00:30, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It's already been listed at WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity — that's how I found it. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:38, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * After reading five new proofs of the identity by 9 other mathematicians (not including Sun), I have expanded the entry by adding some new references. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CombFan (talk • contribs) 02:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep but the title has to change, because it sounds silly at the moment. Perhaps Sun's curious identity would be an appropriate title? JulesH (talk) 10:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That suggested title looks good to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:17, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge to Binomial coefficient. Not sufficiently notable to have its own article. Also inherently stubby - the result offers no illuminating insights, no generalisations, no consequences, and has no interesting history. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:49, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I agree that the title should change if this is kept. Certainly there are many "curious identities" involving binomial coefficients.  The amount of scholarly attention this one has received seems to indicate not only some degree of notability, but also that this is not merely one of the innumerable "curious identities", so a different title should be used.  So I suppose some portions of my comments above add up to:
 * Tentative keep. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:06, 20 December 2008 (UTC)


 * keep. The page's title is taken directly from the title of Sun Zhi-Wei (2002), a perfectly respectable and well-cited, peer-reviewed article.  Why is deletion of this wiki page even being considered, when there are between four and six peer-reviewed academic journals, of direct relevance, cited?   Zhi-Wei evidently thought it was a "curious identity" and if he (she?) and the editor and referees thought so too, that's good enough for me and should be enough to satisfy wikipedia's notability criteria.  I don't think that merging with  Binomial coefficient as per Gandalf61 is the right way forward, because although the article is pretty stubby now (as Gandalf61 correctly points out) one day the article might well be much bigger and (eg) include proofs (more than one!); I'll get round to it one day.   So if we merged, there would have to be a main page: ... link.   I have not yet had time to digest Sun 2008 but the abstract says "We also ... investigate Bernoulli and Euler polynomials.  Our approach depends heavily on an identity established by the author [A curious identity involving binomial coefficients (sic), EJCNT (2)2002, A4 ...]".   (this quote further establishes the legitimacy of the page title).  I'll get round to including some of these 2008 results in the page when I get a minute.  Best wishes, Robinh (talk) 20:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * reply. I'm going to reply to myself (having just this minute obtained Sun Zhi-Wei 2008)  and point out that that paper is (IMHO) pretty poor in terms of take-home messages, assessment of notability, help for non-experts, likely applications outside the discipline, and so on.  This type of mathematical paper is extremely difficult to wikify.  But this doesn't mean we shouldn't try.  Robinh (talk) 20:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.