Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2023 April 12

= April 12 =

Notability of Ekaterina Karatsuba
I was researching fast evaluation of functions and came across E. Karatsuba. She is the developer of the FEE algorithm and is mentioned there, and was interested in writing an article on her. However it does not seem that she meets the notability criteria. She is not a distinguished professor (at least not currently as far as I can tell), and has only 5 citations on her most notable paper (albeit a niche problem). However, she is the senior researcher in "Mathematical Methods of Recognition and Forecasting" at CC RAS, a very notable institution. So I think she still counts as notable per criteria 5 in WP:PROF. Opinions? JSory (talk) 09:59, 12 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Her full name in Russian is Екатерина Анатольевна Карацуба. She is the daughter of Anatoly Karatsuba, a prolific mathematician and the inventor of the Karatsuba algorithm. From the Russian article on her father we learn that she was born in 1963 and holds a doctorate in the Physical and Mathematical Sciences. I have the feeling we need at least some material from independent reliable sources covering the person herself, beyond being a senior researcher and the author of publications. The second link in FEE method only mentions the name in a bibliographic entry to her 1991 article in Проблемы передачи информации, which was published in Russian. She has a personal page with an email address. Perhaps she can tell us whether there are any such sources. They don't have to be in English; Russian is fine. --Lambiam 13:13, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of any requirements that personal life be covered by WP:RS for scholars.Can't it just be omitted? (And also the proof that she is A. Karatsuba's daughter isn't incredibly strong, she co-authored a couple papers with him and has a picture of him on one of her pages {and yes I'm aware that "Анатольевна" means "Anatoly's daughter"}, but despite what the ru.wiki article implies she (and no other known source) never directly claims it. Not that it would matter since notability of one's parents doesn't not inherently make one notable. She also publishes all her work in English as well, if you look at her researchgate profile)
 * I suppose the real question is being a senior RAS researcher sufficiently notable, per criteria 5, or not? JSory (talk) 02:47, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * She may be notable for the impact of her work, but this needs to be based on sources. I doubt that "being a senior researcher at a well-respected research institution" makes the cut. This is ultimately a judgement call. I am not sure of the best place to discuss this (Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)?), but it is not the Wikipedia Reference desk. --Lambiam 05:39, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * So here is how to decide if she is notable. 1) Find as much information from independent and reliable sources about her that you can.  This can be books, websites, journals, newspapers, whatever so long as the writing is about her and her life, and so long as the source is independent and reliable, it will likely be useful to you.  2) See if the material you have gathered provides enough information for you to write a decent-length encyclopedia article about her life and her work.  If that material does seem to afford you enough information to write that encyclopedia article, by definition, she is notable enough for you to write the encyclopedia article.  If, when you look at the sum total of all of the information (from reliable and independent sources) about her life you can find, and you notice "Well, this is only a couple of sentences at best, I basically don't learn anything useful from this scant information" then by definition, she isn't notable enough for an article, because there's not enough information available to write an article with.  Don't get distracted by other measures or indications of so-called "notability".  All you need to know is if there is enough source material to write a decent article from, then the article is appropriate, it would survive AFD discussions, and likely wouldn't even get nominated to be deleted.  If you start an article but adequate source material doesn't exist, eventually someone will notice, and the article will get deleted.  -- Jayron 32 12:03, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Does anyone know the etymology of the surname Karatsuba, actually? I remember being shocked the first time I saw it that it was not Japanese! Double sharp (talk) 16:20, 16 April 2023 (UTC)


 * As a Japanese term (唐鍔) it makes perfect sense, seen used e.g. here and here [added 20:08, 16 April 2023 (UTC):] and in the article 鍔 on the Japanese Wikipedia. The surname is also found in the variant Корацуба and may originally be Ukrainian. --Lambiam 17:13, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It's worth noting that 唐鍔 here seems to refer literally to a Tang dynasty-era (唐) sword guard (鍔); although not impossible, I think it unlikely that this would be the origin of a surname, and Jisho doesn't give any other potential surnames that can be read as Karatsuba. Personally, I find the latter theory to be a more likely candidate, and Russian wikipedia has an article on someone with the slightly different surname Karatsupa whose father had the slightly-different surname Karatsyupy (Карацюпы.) GalacticShoe (talk) 10:58, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * So, it seems to be a very surprising coincidence: I was sure it was Japanese until I found out Anatoly Karatsuba's first name. Thank you both! (Though I still wonder what the name means in Ukrainian, if it is originally that.) Double sharp (talk) 11:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Excellent question; I can't speak to the etymological origin of the name, but I did find out that there is a village called Karatsyubyne in Ukraine, and also apparently -pa does appear as a somewhat-uncommon Ukrainian surname suffix. So there is at least some precedent that it could be Ukrainian in origin. GalacticShoe (talk) 14:43, 19 April 2023 (UTC)