Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of quaternions


 * 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. WP:SNOW  MBisanz  talk 23:09, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

History of quaternions

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If all of the nonsense in this article were removed, so little of it would be left that it would make very little sense to have it as a separate article, rather than as a section in the "Quaternion" article. A. di M. (talk) 13:39, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep There has been a lot of nonsense written about quaternions over time. That's why it is notable. The Quaternion and Classical Hamiltonian quaternions articles are big enough in dealing with the actual subject matter and as pointed out the subject has changed in emphasis quite considerably. Dmcq (talk) 16:39, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Nonsense can be here if it's notable provided that it is noted as being nonsense. I agree that we could have an article about the history of quaternions, but it would have to be written from scratch, from reliable sources. This article isn't even a good start. It sounds like advocacy of quaternions and ridiculising of "modern" vectors. Just take a look at the talk page of the article for an idea of its problems. --A. di M. (talk) 01:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. The history of the quaternions is a notable enough subject to merit its own article, much of which is not about the mathematics of the quaternions, but is more sociological. Such material would imbalance the Quaternion article. I agree that the present article has some nonsense which should be cut and some nonsense which should be better sourced. None of this adds up to any case for deletion whatsoever - indeed the latter outcome would result in the removal of relevant sourced content. Geometry guy 19:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Some history of the development of this article is important. At one point there was only one article, which expanded to three.  The classical quaternion article is the one that I would like to spend more time working on, however I think that there needs to be a place for the in depth history of quaternions.  So far I have yet to see an in depth list of material which is 'nonsense'.  Rather than deleting this article I think the solution to the problem is to improve it.  I would like to keep the classical quaternion article about the historical 19th century mathematical development of the subject.  Part of the problem might be that a lot of the content for the article was material that was cut out of the Classical Quaternions article and put there because it didn't really have any place else to go at the time, when it was decided to divide the content of one article into three.  Perhaps me dividing the original material which every one seemed in favor of at the time, and then neglecting the history has had an unfortunate effect of this subject not receiving the in depth treatment it deserves.  The original idea for the article was that it was supposed to cover the who and what subject of quaternions which has a number of interesting people and interesting turns as well.  Renewed interest in the subject of quaternions in the 21st century makes their sad history especially through the 21st century much more relevant.  I have a few sources I can add for some of the material, but right now I am working on H theorem.Hobojaks (talk) 20:57, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions.  -- &mdash; G716  &lt;T·C&gt; 02:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  -- &mdash; G716  &lt;T·C&gt; 02:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Yes, in my view there is a substantial amount that has no place in this article, or indeed any article; and I have consistently communicated that view to the article's main author.  On the other hand, there is also a substantial amount that does deserve to stay -- the guide to the nineteenth century language is useful, as in the chance to take a more in depth look at the history of quaternions, and the comings and goings in the interest in them, to  a much greater degree than we do in the IMO already getting very crowded and congested main article on quaternions.  So, IMO radical pruning is needed, but quite definitely keep.  Jheald (talk) 11:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is a case of editing and improvement rather than deletion. — Jonathan Bowen (talk) 15:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep -- I am not an expert on the subject, but unless this is entirely WP:OR, it is an article that we need. It is correctly flagged for rescue.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. For a mathematical object, quaternions have a long and complicated history. It's not possible to give detailed coverage of that history in the main quaternions article without overbalancing the article away from the mathematical aspects of quaternions. The current page may not be ideal, but deleting it is not the right solution. Ozob (talk) 17:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: I took the liberty of cutting down the number of time periods. So now the period from 1929 to 1955 is a single period in which the history of quaternions reflects the fact that nothing happened.  The sad fact is that many school kids today have little concept of history, so I think it is important to put some important world events into a chronology to provide context.  If it is disputed that Einstein became the defacto leader of the relativists in this period I can provide citations with ease.  Also I have proposed that some material from sections 5 and 6 be merged into the main article.  Questions about "what" like what is the difference between vectors and vectors belongs in the main article and a new section on that subject has been created since section 5 came into existence.  Hodge duels, that belongs in two places, who was Hodge, and when did he live, when did he have his idea about duals, how did this contribute to a modern synthesis, these things in a not to technical form mind you belong in the history part of the article.Hobojaks (talk) 19:30, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Very strong delete Unsourced, unsourceable, and nonsense. We could use a history of quaternions, but not this one; have any of the keep !voters read down to 1929 to 1955 a dark time for quaternions and the world? The implication that Herbert Goldstein invented the relation of Heisenberg's for 2x2 matrices is sheer ignorance. If this is kept, please notify me; I will support all efforts to reduce this out of its present condition, starting with a redirect to quaternions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:DELETE says, "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion." I agree that the present content is not very good. But the page can be, and ought to be, improved instead of deleted. Ozob (talk) 23:01, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * But can this be improved? Take out the partisanship and the irrelevancies, and what is left? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * A redirect. Ozob (talk) 22:24, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Note There was a period of time when quaternions fell into disuse.  I don't understand if you mean to dispute that fact. This should be fairly easy to document. I think you do make a good point in that past versions of this article listed multiple time periods were little or nothing happened in the field of quaternions.  Now this period of inactivity extends all the way to the start of the space age in 1958.  It can certainly be well documented that quaternions found applications in space craft attitude control. I think you do make a good point that in an earlier version of the article it basically gave a number of time periods when nothing happened with quaternions.  I also agree that Goldstein's book in general is not about ideas that he invented.  Instead his book is an important exposition of other peoples older ideas.  Goldstein does mention quaternions in a foot note.  The important historical event here is that someone is talking about quaternions.  If this section is poorly worded to the extent that it suggests that Goldstein was suggesting so sort of new idea, I agree that this needs to be fixed.  I am not sure if you mean to dispute the idea that a quaternion can be written as a two by two matrix, if you are going to dispute that fact the place to do it is in the main article where there is a section dedicated to that point of view.  However that Goldstein mentions quaternions in his book and uses the matrix representation of a quaternion in a number of sections which he dutifully represents with the letter Q is a verifiable and note worthy fact.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hobojaks (talk • contribs) 06:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep (for now). The article deserves a second chance. In particular, it needs reliable sources. Ulner (talk) 22:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment on future redirect: It doesn't matter if this article is deleted or not. If it ain't deleted, I'm just going to replace the whole thing with a redirect to quaternion.  Maybe there's something legitimate here that isn't already there (as indicated by G-Guy), but I don't see it.  I'll take a look before deleting the whole thing though.  --C S (talk) 22:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Second. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Support: I fully support C S. The present material digresses very far from being a history of quaternions. And the rest is already in quaternion (which also needs inline references on this). So nothing worth saving, in my opinion. To make a new fresh start: reliable sources to the history of quaternions do exist. See e.g.: Conway & Smith, "On Quaternions and Octonions", 2003, ISBN 1568811349; Crowe, "A History of Vector Analysis", Dover, 1994, ISBN 0486679101; van der Waerden, Mathematics Magazine 49(5), 1976, 227-234; etc. -- Crowsnest (talk) 10:47, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. You can't say that everyone else's opinion doesn't matter, since even if we keep it you'll delete it anyway.  That isn't how consensus works.  And I say Keep, since there is enough valid information to warrant its own article, and you couldn't merge all of that information onto another page.   D r e a m Focus  07:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * According to a certain Wikipedian, "Consensus means a handful of people around at the time will decide everything, since the overwhelming majority of people will never get involved in any AFD discussion. Most articles nominated for deletion seem to be nominated and voted on by the same people, none of which were elected. If a different group were around that day, the consensus could shift the opposite way. You almost never have every single person agree on whether something should be deleted or allowed to remain, and they all have different reasons for trying to get rid of something, often based on their personal beliefs on what wikipedia should be, or their interpretation of the various incomplete and often changing policies."
 * In any case, I'm not saying anything like you imagine. Once someone like Pmanderson strips away all the OR junk (which a couple people have been too polite to a fault to have done themselves), we will see what's left.  If it's a crap article, it'll just get redirected as the normal course of things to a better place.  --C S (talk) 08:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. My understanding is that the question at issue here is whether or not Wikipedia should have an article on History of quaternions.  The answer to that question, I think, is obviously yes, so obviously that I think this may fall under WP:SNOW.  The current article is very bad, but that is a separate problem, and is not a good reason for deletion and for the subsequent 6-month ban on creating a new article on the history of quaternions.  The correct response to a very bad article is to fix the article.  If that means burning it to the ground and starting over—and in this case it might—so be it.  —Dominus (talk) 17:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * No, the issue is whether this article is a contribution to that end. By Dominus' argument, any semiliterate piece of OR (on a topic that would be worthwhile) would stay indefinitely. There is no six-month ban on a different article on the history of quaternions, and deletion (which is burning it to the ground, so it can be restarted) is one of the best ways to encourage one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * That reminds me: I was going to look into this 6-month ban thing, since I had never heard of such a thing. I'm glad to see Dominus was mistaken.  Yes, indeed, it would be a bad thing if nobody could start a proper article on the history of quaternions for 6 months.
 * I don't know about "correct response" being fixing the article (although I might be misinterpreting what you mean by "fix"). There are many articles on suitable topics that are deleted just because they are too troublesome (either there aren't any subject matter experts to do a halfway-decent job, repeated SPAs promoting OR, etc).  If the title seems like it would be useful, often a redirect/merge occurs instead.  There is no prejudice against recreating a good version.  --C S (talk) 21:44, 4 March 2009 (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.