Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Perspex machine


 * 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 DELETE. Larry V (talk &#124; contribs) 11:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Perspex machine

 * — (View AfD)

Rather on the edge theory, seems to be the work of a single group with some confrence publications, but few citations. Chief author covered by BBC and slashdot. Salix alba (talk) 20:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep This is a valid theory about Hypercomputation. The fact that it isn't all that well written about and tested (which is hard to do with super turing computation) doesn't invalidate the theory. The theory about super turing / hypercomputation, is kinda vague and not very much spoken about. The theory about dividing by zero has little to do with this page. --Soyweiser 11:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Too far over the edge with too few citations in the scientific, non-self-published literature. The more I read (from the "Book of Paragon" and elsewhere), the less I am enthused:  The perspex can be understood in many ways. Mathematically, the perspex is a particular kind of matrix; concretely, it is simultaneously a physical shape, a physical motion, an artificial neuron, and an instruction for a machine that is more powerful than the Turing machine.   This article was created by users &mdash;,  and  &mdash; who never worked on any other page, except for spamming   The same fellow claims to have found a way to divide by zero, which is to say the least underwhelming.  Anville 21:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete And also delete the article James Anderson (mathematician). Just another self-promoting crank and doesn't meet notability standards anyways. JoshuaZ 21:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. Btw, Perspex is a British brand name for Plexiglas. Tubezone 21:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Non-notable self-published crankery. EdC 21:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Week delete. There are a number of legitimate confrence publications, J A D W Anderson : "Perspex Machine II: Visualisation", accepted for publication in Vision Geometry XIII Longin Jan Latecki, David M. Mount, Angela Y. Wu, Editors, Proceedings of the SPIE Vol. 5675, 112-123 (2005). SPIE is a respecible publication. Also participated in a workshop run by the BMVA (the primary computer vision society in the UK). So more protoscience and psudoscience. Take away the hype and apalling BBC reporting and there seems to be a legitimate computer vision aplication. However not sufficiently well know for wikipedia inclusion. --Salix alba (talk) 22:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Conference proceedings are not peer-reviewed.  It seems "Book of Paragon" is either a vanity press or a self-funded printing of Mr. Anderson's book.  On another note, I prodded James Anderson (mathematician).  Lunch 23:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. This guy Dr Anderson managed to make BBC news with his ideas. So he is in the history books now. Which means people will go to wikipedia to get more info. I know I did – and it gave me the info I needed to conclude this was sofisticated nonsense. So the article served me a purpose. It can serve others to. --gnirre 23:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It didn't actually make "BBC news". There was an article in the Berkshire local edition.  It's a feel-good piece about "looky what our hometown guy can do".  It also doesn't even mention the perspex machine, the subject of this AFD.  Lunch 23:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Also made it to reddit (albeit in a critical manner) so this article has been widely read. 134.226.1.194 01:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Changing my mind, Dr Anderson and Perspex machine are more properly covered in the Transreal number article. --gnirre 16:53, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep and debunk this whole idea so people who research it can find out what it REALLY is. - Stoph 00:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete and salt. No reliable sources other than BBC news.  Any publication with over 5000 volumes (Proceedings of the SPIE) is not likely to be peer-reviewed.  &mdash; Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 00:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Keep as a critical article of the theory properly rewritten, should not be deleted as it is now public knowledge of sorts considering the widely read BBC article, wikipedia should provide an explanation and critical analysis for it's interested users. 134.226.1.194 01:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. linas 01:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete as WP:OR. -- The Anome 03:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. MER-C 04:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep The notion of someone justifying division by zero is too entertaining to wipe out. It should be kept, with appropriate warning regarding nonsense content, in a category similar to "intelligent design" or Father Christmas. The fact that the author is a university lecturer and has obtained a grant for a student (http://www.bookofparagon.com/News/News_00011.htm) to work on this for three years makes it all the funnier - and sad at the same time: imagine you're the student, putting in three years of your life into investigating fairies! Dn23 09:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * keep read the paper, jeez fintler 13:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment This is an argument for keeping why? JoshuaZ 17:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Recent papers published don't seem to be peer reviewed, and one bbc news arcicle does not a notable theory make. Missed WP:OR and WP:RS. After publication in a respectable journal, the story may well change. Inner Earth 15:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep.I disagree with the proposed deletion; we are talking here about a respected and very well qualified academic from a respectable university. He has released precode and will release experimental code in early 2007. Things like this should not be deleted merely because they offend someone's mathematical sensibilities.213.192.200.2 16:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment See among other things policy on no original research and Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. JoshuaZ 17:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Not original research: A paper on perspex algebra was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, a well known journal, in 1997. See this page. digfarenough (talk) 00:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete for now. Wait until it's established. Dr Zak 19:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete OR, unsourced. --Craig Stuntz 19:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete No reason to think this isn't nonsense. Rljacobson 00:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Per my comment above that a paper on perspex algebra has been published in a well known journal. Most of the delete comments are based on a claim of no peer-reviewed articles, but the aforementioned one appears to be valid. Certainly his perspex-related work comes across somewhat crank-like, but the author does have non-perspex publications in mainstream journals, suggesting that at least a short page on the subject is warranted. digfarenough (talk) 00:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * (comments below copied from the AFD for transreal number)


 * Comment. ISI Web of Knowledge reports this paper has been cited zero times. Google scholar reports three citations -- two are from the author. "Perspex machine" doesn't seem to give results on any relevant database (aside from Anderson's stuff). Even the arXiv fails to give results. I also wonder why this paper was published in the biological division of Philosophical Transactions. Seeing as how the paper was published in 1997, there has been ample time to drum up attention. Please correct me if I'm wrong about the above claims. shotwell 01:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * To add a little bit, the Philosophical Transactions publishes three kinds of articles: review articles, articles in a "themed" issue, and conference proceedings. The article cited above comes from conference proceedings and was not peer-reviewed.  For those without access to the abstracts, here it is:
 * This paper introduces perspex algebra which is being developed as a common representation of geometrical knowledge. A perspex can currently be interpreted in one of four ways. First, the algebraic perspex is a generalization of matrices, it provides the most general representation for all of the interpretations of a perspex. The algebraic perspex can be used to describe arbitrary sets of coordinates. The remaining three interpretations of the perspex are all related to square matrices and operate in a Euclidean model of projective space-time, called perspex space. Perspex space differs from the usual Euclidean model of projective space in that it contains the point at nullity. It is argued that the point at nullity is necessary for a consistent account of perspective in top-down vision. Second, the geometric perspex is a simplex in perspex space. It can be used as a primitive building block for shapes, or as a way of recording landmarks on shapes. Third, the transformational perspex describes linear transformations in perspex space that provide the affine and perspective transformations in space-time. It can be used to match a prototype shape to an image, even in so called 'accidental' views where the depth of an object disappears from view, or an object stays in the same place across time. Fourth, the parametric perspex describes the geometric and transformational perspexes in terms of parameters that are related to everyday English descriptions. The parametric perspex can be used to obtain both continuous and categorical perception of objects. The paper ends with a discussion of issues related to using a perspex to describe logic.
 * Like Slotwell said above, that this is in a biology journal smells funny, too. Lunch 01:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Not quite so funny when you read the title of the volume Knowledge-based Vision in Man and Machine. --Salix alba (talk) 17:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete as a non-notable idea that lacks credible sources. Thanks to Lunch for posting my comment from the transreal discussion. I would further point out that matrices were generalized quite some time ago. shotwell 02:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Just not notable enough.  For mathematics, we require reliable sources in books, journals, etc.  All I see here is a couple of articles by the same author with no subsequent work by others.  If we created Wikipedia entries for anything written by someone in some conference proceedings, we would be drowning in crap, and I don't think Wikipedia is that bad yet.  (slightly modified comment I made on afd for transreal number)  --C S (Talk) 09:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Statement I am the James Anderson who developed the perspex machine and transreal arithmetic. I will make a short personal statement and then give some verifiable facts. Statement: I did not initiate, nor induce anyone to initiate, any article currently on Wikipedia. My talk page shows that I initiated an article to explain more about transreal numbers, but this was deleted because it was deemed to be a neologism. I have no view on whether or not the articles describing me or my research should be kept. I regard that as a matter for the Wikipedia community, which initiated these articles, to decide. Facts: My B.Sc. is in Experimental Psychology from Sussex University, England, and was awarded in 1980. My Ph.D. is from Reading University, England.  The title of my Ph.D., awarded in 1992, is “Canonical Description of the Perspective Transformations.” All of my scientific papers were peer reviewed. Recent controversy sprang from an open day I attended at Highdown School, Berkshire. My talk was reported on BBC Radio Berkshire, BBC South Today (regional TV news), and BBC News 24 (Satellite TV). BBC Radio Berkshire is to allow me to reply to my critics on a radio show. The BBC intends to invite a professional mathematician to assist the radio presenter. I have forwarded to the BBC my papers showing how transreal arithmetic is performed as operations on fractions and axiomatically, as well as how transreal arithmetic extends to analysis. There are more papers on my personal web site that could be used to bolster claims in the various articles relating to me and my work. The perspex machine and transreal arithmetic has been simulated in software which is available on my personal web site. A version of the perspex machine has been implemented in FPGA. All of these versions implement digital and, therefore, Turing computable approximations to the machine and the arithmetic. The  Transreal number article contains a number of historical inaccuracies and misinterpretations of my work, but is very much better informed than most commentary I have seen. If the article is kept I could contribute corrections to its talk page or direct to the article. Given the controversy this has provoked I am inclined to contribute to the talk page if the article is kept. James A.D.W. Anderson 14:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment to James Anderson. I appreciate your willingness to abide by Wikipedia policy and guidelines in not creating articles about yourself or your work, and suggesting that you will make suggestions on the talk pages.  However, I don't see how a publication with over 6000 volumes can be peer-reviewed, nor do I believe that conference proceedings are usually peer-reviewed as to the importance of the subject, but only (at most) as to technical correctness.  (Conference proceedings of math conferences, at least the ones I've participated in, are not peer-reviewed, but only copyedited.  I'm being generous in assuming they're reviewed for technical correctness.)  In other words, if I renamed an obscure mathematical concept, and popularized it in computer science conferences and conference proceedings, I have no doubt the publication would be accepted.  I'm not saying you've done that, but it certainly looks as if nullity and transreal are existing mathematical and computational concepts.  I'm beginning to think that this article may be a keeper, after cleanup, but I believe we'd need more information, which you might be able to provide.  &mdash; Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 15:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Reviewing procedures are adapted to the circumstances of each field of scientific enquiry. Mathematics, which is a very mature subject, is notable for its very strong reviewing of journals which are, often, focused on very specific parts of mathematics. Mathematics conferences, by contrast, are well known for the low threshold of reviewing many of them adopt -- as you acknowledge. This suits the mathematics community. Conferences operate as workshops where new ideas can be aired and discussed with peers before too much effort is invested in formal development. Computer Science, by contrast, is a young and rapidly developing area of science. Journals have, traditionally, had lead times that would inhibit technological progress. Computer Science deals with this by having a range of conferences with varying degrees of peer review. The strongest of these, such as the three, blind, reviews used by ECAI, adopt levels of review comparable with the better journals. ECAI has published my work on the perspex machine. The point at issue, I would have thought, is that the perspex machine (and transreal arithmetic) have been subjected to the level of review appropriate to the scientific field, Computer Science, in which they are published. The work on transreal arithmetic, of which nullity forms a part, has been proved consistent by machine proof. This work was undertaken by an independent researcher at a different university from my own. And the machine proof has been examined at a third university. All agree that transreal arithmetic is consistent and contains real arithmetic as a proper subset. All of my scientific papers are available in paper form from the relevant copyright libraries and, in many cases, from the electronic databases of the publishing organisations. The papers that are on my web site are only a subset of the papers I have written – specifically, the subset for which I have copyright permission to reproduce. The copyright policies of many journals prevent self publication so the papers that appear on an author’s web site are necessarily skewed. This bias may disappear as electronic publishing takes hold -- but it is a bias that Wikipedians may profitably be aware of. In my, self-interested, view, my papers have been reviewed to the appropriate standards for my subject area. If you accept this, then the relevant test to apply is whether the material is sufficiently noteworthy, or sufficiently well accepted in society at large, to appear in Wikipedia. Wikepedians are, I am sure, familiar with the concept of flaming. Since the recent publicity surrounding my work I have been flamed in a number of electronic fora. But I have now received a handful of apologies from people after they have read my papers on transreal arithmetic. None of the hundred or so counter-proofs I have seen to my work are valid, except one, which exposed an error in the guarding clause of equation ten in the analysis paper. This error does not affect the validity of any of the material publicised in the media. Indeed, before making the public presentation, I had obtained a second proof of the 0^0 result using the transreal exponential and logarithm: 0^0 = e^(ln 0^0) = e^(0 ln 0) = e^(0 * -infinity) = e^nullity = nullity.) I invite you to consider whether this is consistent with your (informal) view of the exponential function at these extremes, and then reflect on whether it is valuable to have a total and consistent arithmetic. As a computer scientist I can tell you, for example,  that a total and consistent arithmetic guarantees that all functions are differentiable, though I, personally, cannot find many of the differentials. But I can, for example, find the first differential of tan(theta) at theta = pi/2 using nothing more than the gradient formula and transreal arithmetic, along with knowledge of which order to compute end points in. Which I can easily obtain by examining the function in the neighbourhood of pi/2. (The gradient is –infinity.) I can also evaluate tan(pi/2) and obtain its unique numerical value at this point. (Nullity.) Thus, my total and consistent arithmetic supplies results where standard mathematics struggles or fails completely. I believe this work has now reached the level of maturity where it can, and should, be published in mathematical journals, and I will take steps to do so. On the issue of the size of the SPIE conferences, you will note that in a conference the number of peers is equal to the number of conference attendees. Of course, one wants academic peer review of scientific papers, but even here the number of academic peers is quite plausibly a constant factor of the number of attendees. Consider this case: in a conference of one million mathematicians each mathematician reviews three anonymised papers, other than his or her own. Three blind reviews have then been obtained for every mathematician at the conference. And this result would be the same in a conference of one billion or one trillion mathematicians. When it comes to peer review, size does not matter. James A.D.W. Anderson 20:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * In claims of a mathematical concept, the relevant peer-review is that used in mathematics, which your papers have not been subject to. (And blind randomized peer reviews can fail miserably, even in the field of computer vision, as, if the reviewer does not understand the paper, he cannot say it's wrong.)  This article might be allowable provided it makes no reference to mathematical concepts or concepts claimed to be mathematical.  If that were the case, I'm not sufficiently familar with the peer-review concept as applied in CS to be sure the article fails Wikipedia requirements.  Once mathematics enters the article, I am sufficiently familar with the mathematics involved to assert that it fails.  And hypercomputing is a mathematical concept.  &mdash; Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 20:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Dr. Anderson, you say that people at two other universities have reviewed (or reproduced or further studied) your work. Can you tell us who they are, or --- better yet --- tell us where they have published their separate results?  Thanks.  Lunch 21:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete OR. Leibniz 17:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * strong keep This cannot be OR, since it is based on published articles. Reporting & summarizing concepts in publishing material is exactly what we are supposed to do. I might be a little hesitent if JA had written the article, but since he did not, there is no problem about it. AR, you're in WP yourself as a notable mathematician & I do not want to second guess you, but WP is not an encyclopedia that refuses possibly notable topics until all the people in the field are certain--we're not a scientific review, and w are not judging for tenure. Good enough for WP. DGG 02:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Being merely published is not enough. The ideas must have been fact checked, peer reviewed, and accepted into the general corpus of human knowledge.  We don't include things that have yet to be acknowledged by anyone beyond their creators.  If you want to show that this is not original research, show that Anderson's idea has been peer reviewed and acknowledged by other people apart from its creators.  All that we have so far are papers that only Anderson has published on xyr own web site, or that have been published as non-reviewed conference proceedings.  We have nothing else.  Please find something and cite it.  Uncle G 10:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirect To James Anderson (computer sceintist) which should explain that he is a crackpot. Authors are normaly takes as more notable than their contributions.  Alternaticely, create an article on mathematics crackpots which talks about several notable ones and redirect all these articles there.  Perspex & Anderson are not notable for  scientific merits but they are notable as well know parts of the cultural phenomenon of mathematics crackpotery.  JeffBurdges 11:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Too cutting edge FirefoxMan 16:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. The only sources I have been able to find about this idea can be tracked back to its originator. This is not enough: I believe our articles should be adequately referenced. I imagine that if this idea is taken up by others then broader references will be forthcoming, and the article can be re-created without trouble. WMMartin 19:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. No coverage by reliable, third-party published sources. -- Satori Son 03:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete as per WP:SCHOOL. Fragglet 15:15, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I've looked, and the only things that I can find written about the subject are James Anderson's mailing list postings, press releases from the University of Reading that are clearly sourced to James Anderson, and papers written by James Anderson. No-one else has written about it.  Even in the recent discussions that have occurred on Internet, it has only been mentioned in passing, those mentions comprising nothing more than discussions of the name and comparisons to Orac.  There is no evidence that Anderson's papers have been peer reviewed, and no evidence that the concept of a "perspex machine" (or even of a "perspex") has been acknowledged by anyone other than Anderson and become a part of the corpus of human knowledge.  Original research. Delete. Uncle G 15:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete It's Original research. His papers only reference the work of other papers by him and his colleagues.  There appears to be no independent third-party peer review of his research.  The mathematics community refutes all of his claims. Delete. 199.212.18.131 17:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak keep If indeed James Anderson's concepts are pseudomath and/or an unoriginal rehash of ideas that have been used before, why not keep the article but specify the holes in the theory or the equivalencies that are claimed?  That might provide useful information to anyone else trying to develop a similar idea.  The subjects pass notability by merit of the ongoing public discussion.  The subjects pass OR by merit of being verifiably published by third-parties.  Treat it like Intelligent Design or Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Pseudoscience, pseudoreligion, pseudomath.    Oneismany 00:41, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Because Wikipedia editors constructing a firsthand critique of the idea from whole cloth is original research, which our No original research policy forbids. Including critiques of the idea  requires that such critiques exist, in published sources outside of Wikipedia.  But no such sources exist.  Your assertion that there has been publication of stuff about this subject by third parties is wrong (please cite sources if you wish to demonstrate otherwise).   Once again: The only person who has written anything at all about this subject is James Anderson xyrself.  And, no the subject does not satisfy the Primary Notability Criterion.  Once again: The "ongoing public discussion" does not address this subject directly, only tangentially and in passing.  There are no non-trivial published works, from reliable and independent sources, that cover the subject.  In any case, the overwhelming majority of the public discussion is by unreliable sources (e.g. people posting on web logs under pseudonyms). To make a case for treating this like Intelligent Design, you need to cite as many good sources as can be found in Intelligent Design.  Intelligent Design even has books that address the subject, you'll notice.  You haven't cited any sources at all to demonstrate that your suggestion is workable. Uncle G 10:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment: We have a cleaned up version of James Anderson (computer scientist), please consider redirecting this article there if you voted keep.  Nothing wrong with deleting this article either.  We have the only article we need on the subject now.  JeffBurdges 13:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Original research. Phil s 21:23, 14 December 2006 (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.