Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2012/Sep

Neal Koblitz' early days in Vietnam
Question, as an outsider (a linguist, for my sins), this relates to something I have been pondering since seeing the surprisingly strong support from what appear to be mathematics editors for the long-umlaut Hungarian spelling of the subject at the recent Talk:Paul Erdős RM. It shows a surprising preference of mathematical sources for what most newspapers would find a spelling not worth getting right. Either that or mathematicians are all Magyarphiles. But I was just looking pn Google Books at references to the two "fathers" of Vietnamese mathematics Hoàng Tụy and Lê Văn Thiêm and found Neal Koblitz' autobiography spelling their names correctly. Is this kind of exactness with foreigners's names usual in the mathematics world, or is it just because of Koblitz' ties to Vietnam? Specifically, do the databases that mathematics papers are filed in preserve the spelling of Vietnamese mathematicians? I can see they do for Czechs and Croats. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:06, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Diacritics are determined by policy, common sense, good willed efforts to do things correctly, and compromise. We would go mad trying to be consistent with all languages. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  16:15, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think a lot of credit for the urge to get people's names right goes to Knuth. He made sure that it was possible to put the long umlaut on Erdős's name, in the software that we all use for typesetting mathematics, and if you look at his books you will find that he goes to great lengths to spell out all names with full middle names in his indices. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:35, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * @Kiefer, actually en.wp is entirely consistent; 100% of all non-Vietnamese people with Latin-alphabet names are rendered correctly, I don't see anyone driven insane by this.
 * @David, thanks for this information. Do mathematics papers databases then use cataloguing/character systems designed by Donald Knuth? In ictu oculi (talk) 16:43, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Mathematical Reviews and Google scholar have attempted to link papers to authors, and I believe at least MR includes aliases, etc. Look at MathSciNet for documentation about author indexing.
 * Knuth's TeX and Metafont and Leslie Lamport's LaTeX have inspired the development of fonts for many languages, and systems like Babel that allow writing LaTeX on native keyboards. Typically, mathematicians and computer scientists have interest in writing systems. (c.f., Scott Kim's work as mentioned by Douglas Hofstader).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk • contribs) 20:27, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Many thanks, unfortunately that information is a bit beyond me in actually testing it with a search. Euclid seems equipped, per Duke Mathematical Journal reproduction of Ngô Báo Châu, Le lemme fondamental, and mathnet.ru seems equipped - with index entry Hoàng Tụy, Hoàng Tụy, “On the structure of measurable functions. 1961.
 * Presumably Vietnam Journal of Mathematics is indexed in western sources, so specific articles/papers from Vietnam Journal of Mathematics Vietnam Journal of Mathematics Volume 39 Number 3 Special issue dedicated to Professor Hà Huy Khoái on the occasion of his 65th birthday would list papers by Lê Văn Thiêm and others? In ictu oculi (talk) 01:09, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, Øystein Ore's name is spelled the way he spelled it in the Wikipedia article about him, and when I cited one of his books in a published paper, I had no trouble writing it that way, since the typesetting software designed by Knuth, Lamport, etc. make that easy. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Michael. After a bit of digging around I found that 100% of all mathematician bio titles on en.wp are given in full LaTeX (or Windows XP foreign input) format, even those with unusual letters such as Gheorghe Ţiţeica, Đuro Kurepa, and Cem Yıldırım,... 100%. The only exceptions are these VAST mathematicians. So I have put in a move discussion at WP:RM under Talk:Ngô Bảo Châu for him + also Lê Văn Thiêm and Hoàng Tụy, but it doesn't show on alerts on the Project homepage here. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:36, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

File:2D Greek Cross Fractal.png
File:2D Greek Cross Fractal.png has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.252 (talk) 04:15, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Busy day for scientific AFD's
There are lots of mathematical and scientific AFD's today: Articles for deletion/Jasinski Flower, Articles for deletion/Iteration of mathematical curves, Articles for deletion/Local maximum intensity projection, Articles for deletion/Streamsurface, Articles for deletion/Skin friction lines, Articles for deletion/Asymptotic Decider, Articles for deletion/Lagrangian-Eulerian Advection, Articles for deletion/Vortex Core Line, Articles for deletion/Streamlet (Scientific Visualization), Articles for deletion/Tensor glyph, Articles for deletion/Worley noise, Articles for deletion/Image-based flow visualization. You views are welcome. The first two of which have been mention on this page before.--Salix (talk): 22:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Most of the nominations in this list are from a person who says of each article that he does not see how it can be expanded beyond a dictionary definition, when there are already dozens of published papers on the concept and anyone with a bit of experience in such matters would expect that they can be greatly expanded, just based on seeing what's already there. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:04, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Is an article/dab Generate (mathematics) (or Generate (abstract algebra)) needed?
Is it sensible to add this article or disambiguation page (to defining sections in relevant articles, still to be added)? I see the term generated recurring frequently (in groups, modules, rings, vector spaces, etc.), and the concept is possibly complex enough to need more than a dictionary definition. It strikes me that the average reader may be a little unsure about inferring its exact meaning from the context, and digging WP around does not easily yield a definition. — Quondum☏ 09:10, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Would a redirect to Generator (mathematics) do? Deltahedron (talk) 09:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, I missed that and what it links to. It gives essentially everything needed. What is really needed is more links from the articles that use the term. A redirect from the verb as suggested in my suggested titles may make sense, but I see the dab page Generate is there. Dunno how I missed it. — Quondum☏ 10:00, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I've created the two redirects. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Complex multiplication
I propose merging Abelian variety of CM-type into Complex multiplication (and finding some sources too). If that makes the latter article too long, then it seems that splitting out Complex multiplication of elliptic curves would be preferable. Deltahedron (talk) 10:59, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Possibly, they can always be split off again if needed by overwriting the redirect with content. Maschen (talk) 15:19, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Square (algebra)
It was wrong and harmful that [ merged]  into square number without any announcement and substantiation, an article with two dozens of interlanguage links distinct from "square number". These things are very distinct! "Square (algebra)" is relevant not only to integers, not only to numbers, and even not only to mathematical abstractions. There are squares in algebras. There are square units and squares of physical quantities. There are $x^{2}$ terms in rings of polynomials, at last. The merger was egregiously wrong. I cannot trust an user which makes such bold mergers of significant topics (well beyond a stub) without a trace of justification. It introduce a confusion, disruption of interlanguage links structure and constitutes an attempt to bypass a due process. I thing, the user’s contributions have to be examined. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:03, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well he anounced here back in 2011 and did create an edit summary. There was support here from three other editors not including JBL. The merge seems fine to me, they're not that disjiont. Maschen (talk) 09:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Maschen’s "create an edit summary " points to the same diff I provided from the beginning. Its edit summary reads: All content moved to square number, creating a redirect, not a byte more. Now I see Talk: Square number, but do not see this link in edit summaries, nor see I merge templates in the history of "Square (algebra)". And I do not see "support from three other editors not including JBL", would you list their nicks? In any case, it is obvious that insufficient number of math experts took part in the discussion. Unlikely a single person educated in algebra could agree with this merge, given Wikipedia contained more than a hundred of articles in mathematics. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:55, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * , and  [favoured to merge articles in one way or another ―Incnis Mrsi (talk) 21:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)] ;  disagreed. I hardly believe my eyes which see this rampage of incompetence in an educated domain of English Wikipedia. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * So what if I link to the same diff you provided. Not sure about Froogle1099 but the others seem knowledgeable enough on the topic. Where did they say they "disagree"? The merge is done. It's on you if you want to split them apart again. Maschen (talk) 10:06, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * It is not the merge that is "wrong and harmful". It is the previous content of "Square (algebra)", which considered only squares of integers, did not say anything about squares in other algebraic structures and had essentially the same content as square number. IMO, an article "square (algebra)" is needed and has never been written. Some volunteer to write it? D.Lazard (talk) 10:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Let me indicate I neither favour nor oppose the merge, just stating my view ("The merge seems fine to me" does not imply favour, just that it isn't harmful). If anyone would like to rewrite square (algebra) it's on them, as D.Lazard indicates... Maschen (talk) 10:14, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Not the merge itself, probably, but redirecting "square (algebra)" to "square number" (or to some else article except exponentiation) was a mistake regardless to the contemporary content of "square (algebra)". To me, "square (algebra)" is a topic of primary importance, but "square number" is something related to number theory, a little more notable than, say, triangular number or pentagonal number. I took D.Lazard’s point and will save my stub in a hour. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:45, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅, also [ fixed some of indirect damage] and even one spurious redirect existed since 2007. Volunteers to improve further? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, this all happened while I was asleep, but in the future you might try to engage in less absurd vitriol in your comments. At the time I merged, there had been a merge banner on one or the other page for 2 years, and there were several comments on the talk pages, all of which were supportive of a merge.  Moreover, at that time square (algebra) was a pointless content fork of square number and did not include any information about the more general notion of squaring.  Under these circumstances, the level of melodrama and hostility you've displayed is somewhat incredible, and frankly I think you should consider self-editing or otherwise withdrawing your nastier remarks.  That said, I have no objection to the creation of the new square (algebra) (with nonredundant content) as long as it is clear to readers how to find the article about perfect squares. --JBL (talk) 12:46, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Or, to summarize: AGF, CIVIL, and what Maschen and D.Lazard said.--JBL (talk) 12:50, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * What? Give and  link to a revision of "square (algebra)" with merge or something like it. I still insist that redirecting "square (algebra)" to a number-theory article was a pure damage to Wikipedia – a good, tidy user could just move a part of content, thus reducing "square (algebra)" to a stub. BTW, the paragraph about statistics was clearly off-topical to number theory. So, D.Lazard is not entirely right in his point that the old article "considered only squares of integers". In a new place, such content incorrectly suggested that square (integer) numbers have some relevance to statistics. I would call this just a vandalism if had doubts in JBL’s good faith. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Square_number&oldid=444934406 the last edit before I touched the article. Of course the direction of merge suggested there is the reverse of what I did, but that's because the actual existing content when I started belonged at square number (with the exception, as you note, of one minor section that does not fit well in either article (though somewhat better at square (algebra))).  Your preference for a stub over a redirect is noted; are you universally so unpleasant about having your personal preferences violated?  If so, I request that you reread WP:CIVIL any time you are planning to interact with me in the future.  --JBL (talk) 18:07, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * My personal preferences? Recall WP:Redirect pp. 2 and 10, please. I act according not only to my competence and common sense, but also to official guidelines. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 18:33, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Incnis Mrsi, it's true you frequently state the rules in detail, but in this case it might help if you took your own advice (quit directing comments at JBL) and concentrate on square (algebra), which you made a start to. Thank you. Maschen (talk) 18:58, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Since the guideline you cite is giving advice to do something completely different from what you previously mentioned, I'm not really sure what to say about it. (Your previous comment said I should have made a stub rather than a redirect; the policy you've quoted supports the idea that I should have deleted the article entirely.)  You might also go re-read your initial comment to see where the personalization of this began.  I also await your acknowledgement of the merge banner that you asked about.  (Maschen, apologies for ignoring you excellent advice; I'll stop now.) --JBL (talk) 19:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I have added several links in the "see also" section of square (algebra). IMO, they deserve to have a section in this article, with a hatnote "main". The same is true for some other links, like quadratic residue. D.Lazard (talk) 13:30, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, it is a quite different episode, but directly caused by the case of "square (algebra)". Colleagues, what should I do with [] in Square number? Revert, ignore, and yet revert? To post to the article's talk page? To post something marginally civil to her(?) user_talk? How could they judge whether my contributions are bad or good, if they do not read discussions and are unaware of the situation?! Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * ... Anita5192 just changed the mvar to ordinary markup presumably because she(?) thought it was cleaner (I happen to agree), and the removal of the link to square (algebra) is probably redundant if the article is about square numbers, and states at the beginning:


 * "is an integer that is the square of an integer;[1] in other words, it is the product of some integer with itself."


 * which is surely understandable by most people? Then adding the link back would inform the reader of the operation "squaring a number". I will add it back for you of it's ok... From now on I intend to leave this to others... Maschen (talk) 19:16, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * How can the link to square (algebra) be redundant? It was the only such link in the article, and the link to one of two notions from which are "square numbers" derived: squares of integers!!! Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Cube (algebra)
Robo37’s remark in the infamous merge discussion has possibly the only good consequence: it pointed to another article suffering the syndrome described by D.Lazard. Cubic number was a redirect from the very beginning and hence, there were no mergers. But the disease itself is probably even more acute, as one can observe A cube number usually has a small 3 above it for example x³. If one has a positive thought, then implement it please. I will look, but will not interfere nor even criticize ☺ Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:40, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The quoted awkward sentence is easy to correct (and has been corrected). But the difference between "cube" and "square" is that the latter is ubiquitous in many fields of algebra, while, for the former, there are very few interesting facts to mention, outside elementary arithmetic. D.Lazard (talk) 11:36, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Pictures featured on mathematics portal
Please see Portal talk:Mathematics if you care about how pictures are "featured" at Portal:Mathematics. In a nutshell, I'd like to move to a "random portal component" system from the current "monthly" system. I'd also like opinions on the actual collection of images to use. Interested parties can comment over there. - dcljr (talk) 06:14, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

TeX in previews
Today I did a bit of editing of this section, changing a sort of html table or array, or whatever it's called, that included TeX in math tags, to a single set of math tags using "align". When I clicked on "preview", I saw the TeX code, but it was not rendered. For a thing like this, a small typo could cause the whole thing to come out as a mess, with an error message displayed, so one definitely wants to see the preview before saving it. This used to work. Now it doesn't. Have others seen this or is it just something about my own account, or what? Should we report this to bugzilla? Michael Hardy (talk) 17:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't see a problem, preview works fine displaying the equations, even on the the previous revision with the wiki-table. It could be a browser issue?--Salix (talk): 17:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Also had the problem with previews and had to turn off MathJax to see the png display. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 17:43, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Unlike texvc and user:Nageh/mathJax, I see MathJax from MediaWiki failing to render &lt;math>s on preview from its introduction. I am not much bothered by this because usually write in math. BTW, I use an antiquated Standard skin; though it renders formulas on pages and s. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It is probably worth a bug report on bugzilla as a child of . And older skin could be a problem without the necessary code added to the style sheets. I have no problem with the vector skin, and Google Chrome.--Salix (talk): 20:15, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Arnold tongue
The article recently moved to Arnold tongue has a glaring omission that dominates the article: it doesn't say who it's name after. I'm guessing Vladimir Arnold. Can anyone deny or confirm anything? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I think you're right according to this site and the pdfs at


 * Maschen (talk) 06:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Maschen (talk) 06:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Maschen (talk) 06:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Prison
Hi again. I take it that Pham Minh Hoang has no notability as a mathematician to add to sources? (not related to the Neal Koblitz-names WP:RM above, just tidying stubs). In ictu oculi (talk) 07:06, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * it seems that you are right (not notable as mathematician, at least, I have not found any refereed papers of his). Sasha (talk) 21:14, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * btw, the article is in contradiction to this source. Sasha (talk) 21:16, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sasha, thanks, article corrected and updated. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Shinichi Mochizuki
Hi,

Apparently, there is a rumor that he proved the abc conjecture. (I was not aware and was pointed out to me by Sławomir.) It is thus essential that we have at least very basics on him (whence, the article was created.) It discusses very little on his work (for example, it doesn't discuss Grothendieck conjecture, which he apparently proved.) since I don't have enough background. Unlike Michael Hardy, I cannot order people to work on it, but it would be nice if someone with more background can take a look at it. Best, -- Taku (talk) 22:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * When I've said "Work on it.", that was of course addressed to those whom the Muse inspired. Others are to disregard that notice. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:10, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, if I came out to be rude; I just found the phrase funny every time I see it. -- Taku (talk) 05:57, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

What's going on here

 * $$\lambda(A)_{ij} = (\lambda A)_{ij} = \lambda A_{ij}$$

Paul August &#9742; 00:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Some sort of vertical alignment bug in MathJax? I'm seeing the third Aij a little higher than everything else (including the lambda next to it). I'm using Chrome on OS X, if it matters. Strangely, the effect is greatly reduced in preview,to the point where I thought it wasn't happening at all until I lined it up with a window boundary, but it is much more visible when I view the page without editing. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:05, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * A number of people have this problem I think. I just keep pressing refresh (ctrl+R) and it fixes it most of the time. See also User talk:Nageh/mathJax. Maschen (talk) 01:09, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * To me (in Firefox), it appears that the parentheses descend below the bases of the lambda and the "A" which are the same. JRSpriggs (talk) 07:13, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm using IE (I don't know which release - it's a Vista system ...) on Windows, and it looks just like JRSpriggs described - Virginia-American (talk) 10:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There is a know bug in MathJax on Chrome, which was caused by some change in the way Chromes render worked. Its now ready for release. So it will be fixed with time.--Salix (talk): 10:42, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Invitation to comment at Monty Hall problem RfC
You are invited to comment on the following RfC:

Talk:Monty Hall problem

The Monty Hall problem is an especially interesting one because for many people it is their first exposure to probability calculations, and because it has a distinct psychological aspect; why do so many engineers, scientists and mathematicians get it wrong at first?

The question the RfC asks concerns the place conditional probability should have in the Monty Hall problem article. We could really use some informed opinions on this. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Power residue symbol
I have made a new page Power residue symbol. Over the next week or so I will be making an article on Eisenstein reciprocity and linking existing pages. - Virginia-American (talk) 11:43, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Exact C*-algebra
Exact c*-algebra should be Exact C*-algebra. Could someone help move it? Mct mht (talk) 22:09, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * For now a redirect has been created. Maschen (talk) 22:10, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, forgot this should be moved to preserve the edit history... rather than redirects and cutting/pasting... Maschen (talk) 22:16, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Eisenstein reciprocity
I have added a page on Eisenstein reciprocity and linked it. - Virginia-American (talk) 11:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Good work, but it needs clean up, which I'll do if it's ok. Thanks, Maschen (talk) 11:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, "Be Bold!". - Virginia-American (talk) 16:42, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Subresultant and Polynomial greatest common divisor
I have created the page subresultant, which is only a redirect to a new section of Polynomial greatest common divisor. By the way, I have started to expand this article by introducing in it the new results or clarifications which have been developed since circa 50 years for the need of computer algebra. Subresultant is one of them. For the moment, some sections are yet reduced to their title, in particular the section "references". Cleaning up of the yet written sections would be welcome. D.Lazard (talk) 11:59, 10 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll clean up soon. Good work also. Thanks, Maschen (talk) 12:13, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There is a mix of LaTeX and normal martkup for inline maths symbols (including trivial things like "P" or $$Q$$). I will change all things trivial to type in normal markup for clarity and uniformity, if it's ok. Maschen (talk) 12:18, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Due to some edit conflicts occurring while cleaning up, I'd better stay out of the way and let other editors e.x. D.Lazard make edits before continuing. I apologize for edit conflicts. Maschen (talk) 13:14, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Inter-universal Teichmüller theory


The article Inter-universal Teichmüller theory has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * WP:TOOSOON. None of this has been peer-reviewed, cited in Google scholar by anybody other than Mochizuki himself, reviewed in MathSciNet, or described in any other reliable secondary sources

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:54, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Never mind. An anonymous editor found a reliable source and added it to the abc conjecture article. So I added it as well to the inter-universal article and removed my own prod. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:58, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Help
Hello. I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, but does anybody know what 0.5×106 m3 is? I have been collecting information to make an article, but stuff like this puzzels me as I don't have a good degree in math.  Volcano guy  19:39, 9 September 2012 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "what it is"? It's a measure of volume in m3. The place to ask questions is for articles is on project talk pages, for this type of question the WP:reference desk. Maschen (talk) 19:46, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Five hundred thousand cubic metres. --Matt Westwood 19:46, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
 * ...which is the volume of water in 200 Olympic size swimming pools, or roughly the volume occupied by a large skyscraper such as One Canada Square. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:15, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I just wanted to know what that was in simple format. I thought it ment 500,000 cubic metres.  Volcano guy  20:22, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You might want to read Scientific notation. JRSpriggs (talk) 20:48, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * If you look at page 50 in this paper you will see there are several of these for the volume of landslides, some of which are different than the one I mentioned above. For example, 108-109 and 106. Also, what is 26.8 ± 1.4?  Volcano guy  15:32, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "±" means plus or minus, so as a measurement it is 26.8 units plus or minus 1.4 units, the 1.4 added/subracted on is an engineering tolerance. Maschen (talk) 15:49, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * 108–109 means "between 108 and 109. The "±" in e.g. "2170 ± 60" is some sort of error estimate indicating a range of likely values.  It is probably due to inherent uncertainty in the methods of data collection and statistical analysis the authors use; e.g., radioisotope dating is inherently uncertain, as are techniques of statistical sampling, but the uncertainties can (to at least some extent) be quantified.  --JBL (talk) 16:36, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * May I ask what "between 108 and 109" is in simple format?  Volcano guy  18:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Bigger than 108 = 100,000,000 and smaller than 109 = 1,000,000,000. Maschen (talk) 19:19, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

File:Lyapunov-fractal.png to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Lyapunov-fractal.png will be appearing as picture of the day on September 13, 2012. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2012-09-13. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! — howcheng  {chat} 17:28, 10 September 2012 (UTC)


 * It would be nice to have an explanation of what the grid lines in the yellow region mean. JRSpriggs (talk) 20:59, 10 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Are they not just part of the fractal? Another similar instance is the Arnold tongue. Should add; it goes without saying that it's an extremley attractive picture. Maschen (talk) 21:59, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There's only a limited amount of space to work with for the POTD caption, and because this goes on the Main Page, I don't want to get too technical. — howcheng  {chat} 16:31, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Indeed, it would be nice to know what the grid lines are. The prototype for this is indeed the Arnold tongue, but I have never seen grid-lines on the tongues before. linas (talk)

Tijdeman's theorem
Reading about the ABC conjecture I came across Tijdeman's theorem. There was a notice on that wikipedia page complaining that the article had multiple issues concerning sourcing: there was just one reference and that was to a primary source, the original article by Robert Tijdeman himself. I added some further references which pay attention to the theorem within various bigger contexts (the proof of Catalan's conjecture; Fermat's last theorem; ABC ...). Perhaps some experts on number theory will be able to replace these with better references or make other corrections. Richard Gill (talk) 13:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Has anyone checked yet? I am not a number theorist, but a mathematical statistician. And I'm a colleague of Robert Tijdeman. Richard Gill (talk) 12:22, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * He's a well known number-theorist/Diophantine geometer, so I wouldn't worry about an article on a major result of his. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  16:39, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I moved the references inline. The sourcing for this looks ok to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:45, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Another MathJax bug
I do not know where report about this bug: When entering in a page by following a link to a section, the pointer is placed at the beginning of the section before mathjax computation. If there is many formulas in the page, it results that after mathjax computation, the target of the link is misplaced in the window and sometimes outside of the window, like in Polynomial greatest common divisor. D.Lazard (talk) 13:08, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The place to report is User talk:Nageh/mathJax, not sure what you mean though... sorry. Maschen (talk) 13:12, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Depending on which MathJax he speaks of. The "official" MathJax, deployed since MediaWiki 1.20wmf, certainly has not be discussed in User_talk. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 22:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Note that this is not the result of having many formulas, but of having many formula's spanning multiple lines.
 * The origin of the problem is that the HTML render cannot know how tall the math element is going to be, before the mathjax processor sets in. A work around for the problem is to wrap the math equation with ...
 * This will reserve a space of X "em"s for the equation. (As long as X is smaller than the final height this will not affect the final outcome.)TR 15:05, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I've a feeling this might be a mathjax bug rather than a media wiki bug. For MathJax their issue tracker is MediaWiki's bug tracker is  (you probably want it as a blocker for bug 36496). I would not be suprised is if comes back as "won't fix", I can imagine alsorts of problems with trying to automatically scroll the page after loading.--Salix (talk): 10:08, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal Abstract analytic number theory
Should Beurling zeta function be merged into this article? Deltahedron (talk) 21:33, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Just my suggestion; leave them for now and let them (or really Beurling zeta function) expand, they're topics in their own rights. Maschen (talk) 22:27, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * That is not the opinion of which is cited in Abstract analytic number theory.  They say Some writers avoid the term 'Beurling' and instead discuss 'arithmetic semigroups'.  The mathematics is the same in either case.  Deltahedron (talk) 06:09, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, up to you and others, I didn't say "do not merge at all"... If there is a consensus to blend then do so. Maschen (talk) 08:49, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Examples of jacobians: ¿Where to put
I asked this in the talk page of Jacobian matrix and determinant, but seems nobody reads that! I want to add a (long) list of jacobians, mostly of matrix functions. Where should that go? In mentiones article, or should it be an article by itself?

Kjetil Halvorsen 01:11, 14 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kjetil1001 (talk • contribs)


 * I am not sure to well understand. I understand that you have computed the Jacobian matrix and/or determinant of a long list of functions and you want to publish them in Wikipedia. If my understanding is correct, this is not allowed in Wikipedia, because it is WP:OR. Moreover, it is not helpful, as various widely distributed software (computer algebra systems) allow to do automatically such a computation. D.Lazard (talk) 02:05, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Also, how many people would read the long list? I was the author of defining equation (physics) and defining equation (physical chemistry), and people do not like articles like them!! (btw I intend to split these out at some point). Don't fall into the trap of putting so much effort into creating a long... monotonic list which people may simply switch off and not read, or even propose for deletion... Maschen (talk) 02:20, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, this will not be original work by me, there is a lot of papers published about jacobians, and even a book (by Mathai). I find lists quite usefull, as lists in wikipedia is a reemplacement of earlier mathemathical tables. About computer algebra systems, it is my understanding that they happily compute jacobians, for, say, a 3x3 matrix function, or a 4x4 matrix function, but not so easily for a $m\times m$ function!


 * Kjetil Halvorsen 14:40, 14 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kjetil1001 (talk • contribs)


 * There is the article matrix calculus about a similar topic if I understand you correctly. It has been tagged as an 'accuracy dispute' for a while, so any work you could do on it would be most welcome. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 08:42, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Current activity
It's been a couple of days now since we had new articles at WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity. Is one of the bots down? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:44, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I noticed yesterday sporadic 'page not found' conditions. Might be related. Martin Packer (talk) 09:23, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

The edit history of the "current activity" page shows Jitse's bot doing daily updates at the usual times. But for new articles, it relies on information from user:mathbot. That bot's list of user contributions shows much activity on September 14th and 16th, and only a small amount on the 15th. It could be that on that day, it didn't do all its usual stuff. Maybe we'll be back to normal when Jitse's bot does its next update. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:26, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it looks back to normal now. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:56, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Vital articles
Members of this wikiProject may be interested in Wikipedia talk:Vital articles. Yaris678 (talk) 15:15, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Game theory (which someone is trying to remove from the list of vital articles) has had a large influence on both military strategy and ethics. So it should be kept. JRSpriggs (talk) 23:52, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Stiffness matrix article rewritten
I have rewritten the article stiffness matrix; before, it was kind of a jumble and didn't clearly explain what the stiffness matrix was for a given finite element discretization of a PDE. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Compsonheir (talk) 00:25, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Palindromic Polynomials
Working to elevate Palindromic polynomial beyond stub class. See Talk page for thoughts. I've already made a start. Martin Packer (talk) 10:25, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * If it's ok I will clean it up slightly and fixed the link you just provided. Maschen (talk) 10:28, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing that and to D.Lazard for doing further work on it. I'd contemplated a Factorization section but am now concerned that would duplicate the Properties section too much. How to proceed? Martin Packer (talk) 12:30, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Just write it for now - it can be trimmed later. Maschen (talk) 12:36, 14 September 2012 (UTC)


 * OK got started. I've turned the list of properties into a numbered list so the Factorization section can refer to them individually. I've repaired Property 8 to the best of my knowledge. Could someone please check it's correct. (It chimes with my own knowledge.) Thanks. Martin Packer (talk) 09:22, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Sensibly it's been pointed out we need references - especially for the properties list. Can someone help? Martin Packer (talk) 09:43, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Look at the references in reciprocal polynomial. By the way "reciprocal polynomial" is more usual than "palindromic polynomial" for the same notion, and a merge could be a good idea. D.Lazard (talk) 10:33, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think they're the same thing: a palindromic polynomial is one that is its own reciprocal. But I get the point about starting to use the references from the reciprocal polynomial page in the Palindromic polynomial page. I put one in. I'll put the rest in when I get time - unless someone beats me to it. Martin Packer (talk) 09:42, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The palindromic polynomials are the fixed points under the coefficient-reversing operation described at reciprocal polynomial. The two ideas are very closely related; I think that a merge is probably a good idea.  --JBL (talk) 13:17, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Fermat's Last Theorem
Wondering what was the Last Fermat's Theorem, I accessed the wiki article. For my surprise, I took a while to "find" an + bn = cn. I didn't anything because it must be a very well cared article. But I think it would be a good thing for general users an effective highlight for the math notation of the Theorem (an + bn = cn). At least a bold. The first paragraph would be like this:

"In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (an + bn = cn) (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation for any integer value of n greater than two."

I prefer in the title of the article - Fermat's Last Theorem (an + bn = cn)

Thanks for your attention. You, from WP:WPM, must know what is the best thing to do... maybe nothing. Caiaffa (talk) 15:27, 19 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Better would be an + bn ≠ cn unless n = 1 or 2. JRSpriggs (talk) 15:50, 19 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I am surprised that "it took a while to find" the formula an + bn = cn: It is in the first paragraph of the article. Your proposition may not be accepted because:
 * A formula (an + bn = cn) is not a theorem
 * The common name of this theorem is the title of the article, not what you propose, nor Wiles's theorem
 * An alternating name "an + bn = cn" (redirect) is not useful, because of the difficulty to write it in the research engines.
 * It is thus better to leave the title and the first paragraph as they are. D.Lazard (talk) 16:00, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The first paragraph, indeed the first sentence. Anyone who can't find it isn't actually reading the article.  --JBL (talk) 16:22, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

symbol rendering issue at trapezoid
When discussing two symbols denoting a trapezoid in the lead, I see a little trapezoid symbol for the first, and a little square box with a question mark on the second. That would seem to be a display issue (or a very poorly designed symbol for a trapezoid). Rschwieb (talk) 15:45, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, it should be replaced/removed. Maschen (talk) 15:52, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * It is part of the template Trapezoidnotation, which has been around since 2008. Apart from the small graphic, it doesn't look very useful; only the trapezoid article itself uses it . What to do with it? Maschen (talk) 15:58, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The offending character has the coding U+23E2, described as "WHITE TRAPESIUM" by the Unicode documentation. As it clearly is not supported by many character sets, I'd suggest simply deleting the "or ..." part of the template (with explanatory edit note). — Quondum 16:10, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed with deletion, let's see what others think... Maschen (talk) 16:15, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually lets just proceed. Anyone who objects will revert and explain. Maschen (talk) 06:51, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

From Littlewood's Miscellany
J. E. Littlewood's advice to Wikipedians (p. 164)

"Always verify references." This is so absurd in mathematics that I used to say provocatively: "never ..."

- Virginia-American (talk) 23:05, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Scholarpedia – reliable source?
I've come across Scholarpedia cited (in article Axiom A). Is this regarded as a reliable source? Deltahedron (talk) 11:01, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think initial drafts of Scholarpedia articles are mostly, or at least often, written by eminent authorities in their fields. One such expert, usually the principal author, is appointed to be the "curator" of an article, who superintends later editing, which may be done by others.  I'm not sure how much refereeing happens, but I think in many cases it does, and perhaps in many it doesn't. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:19, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
 * ....and you can always ask the guy who runs it for more complete information about the sorts of things I mentioned above. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:34, 16 September 2012 (UTC)


 * There are several of these, including Scholarpedia and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I tend to view them as very good for external links, but less good for citations. For citations, I prefer to use journal articles and textbooks. Tertiary sources like online encyclopedias are, in my opinion, too far removed from the source material, and have less of a record for stability. They also tend to be more shallow than a textbook would be. This is not to say they are *wrong* - if there was something that could only be cited to them, for some reason, they would be reliable sources.  But, just like when I am writing a journal article of my own, I would have to stop and think well before citing an online-only source here for something that could be cited to a standard textbook instead. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 19:45, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Isn't the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy much older than the web? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:40, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * According to Wikipedia, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an online-only resource created in 1995. Jowa fan (talk) 05:44, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd call it "reliable enough, for now". Even textbooks occasionally have famous bloopers in them. When a WP article is short, stubby and inadequate, then links to superior-quality scholarpedia articles seem appropriate. But, over time, perceptions of quality may change. We've been through this before: a decade ago, Wolfram's mathworld seemed to be this vast source of information, with more extensive, reliable and professional coverage of math topics, than what WP had. This has changed: these days, most mathworld articles are pathetic stubs compared to their WP analogs, and removing refs to them is sometimes a good idea.

The point is to offer the reader an easy-to-get-to, more-or-less-correct, reliable on-line source for pursuing a topic. Books are hard to get: expensive to buy, a trek to a library, which may not have a copy, etc. and all that just so you can verify one or two sentences? Ugh. linas (talk) 15:33, 23 September 2012 (UTC)


 * p.s. Yes, Axiom A needs work. Much of the coverage of dynamical systems here on WP is pathetic. I occasionally try to help, but ... linas (talk) 15:39, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

You're losing the ref war
I see that WP:V has received some great improvements in the past year or so "You may remove any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source." And someone, who is an admin now, put it in practice. And the guy who first came to his aid, also made admin since then. See oppose #4 at Requests_for_adminship/Bbb23. Tijfo098 (talk) 07:31, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * So, you want to discuss something about verifiability. If "you may remove any material lacking an inline citation" is bad, then what is good indeed?
 * Once, a "combinatorics expert" [ injected] his brilliant probability calculation into UTF-8, a quite popular article. Only after three years it became actually examined, purged and investigated, without any care of the problem by the author, still extant. It was only combinatorics, where anything but counting of a small number of principal cases (namely, $2^{n}$ for $n$ not greater than 4) and elementary arithmetic were required. Do you propose to further trust Wikipedia users and to allow OR proofs in some more complicated domains? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what this spat is about, but I note that WP:V says "You may remove any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source" within the context of "any material challenged or likely to be challenged". It is a canard to suggest that all material needs inline citations. WP:V makes very clear that "All quotations and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that requires a source but does not have one may be removed". --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:29, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I can't say I like stuff being deleted without some check about the contents, however in the case pointed out the article did have a big notice at the top of it for three years saying it had no citations or references. I don't think we can complain very loudly about stuff being deleted in that circumstance whether or not there was any problem with the content. Dmcq (talk) 11:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll complain. I edited/created many, many math articles in 2005/2006, before there was any particular citation/verifiability policy. As a courtesy, I always added a section that listed a book or two on the particular topic; inline citations were unheard of at the time. So there is going to be this huge over-hang of math articles from this earlier era without a line-by-line citation. Adding these cites would be a huge project; mass deletions due to a like of cites would be highly inappropriate. linas (talk) 14:57, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The article did not even have any references of any sort never mind citations. The effect of the removal of most of its content was that people came along and added citations references and an external section which I think is good. We don't want a huge number at once but articles without references should definitely be upgraded. Dmcq (talk) 15:32, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, OK, that one was (and still is) a rather crappy article, even with cites. However, responding to emergencies is a very debilitating way of editing: if someone is always deleting something, and you are constantly in some edit-war, you just get exhausted. Quality of edits drops, level of stress hormones go up. What User:Bbb23 should have done is to re-write the article and improve its quality.  As it stands, it was a random, drive-by shooting.  Some bystanders who witnessed the incident resuscitated the article.  But the crime was committed: User:Bbb23 should not have done what he did, and he should be reprimanded for this. It is not acceptable behaviour on wikipedia. linas (talk) 16:24, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Sheesh. it seems User:Bbb23 is an admin. This is a misdemeanor for anyone; but for an admin to behave like a snot-nosed punk... that's wrong. linas (talk) 16:30, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Edits relating to Von Mangoldt function
I'm not sure what to make of these two edits:,. Jowa fan (talk) 03:08, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I would nuke the second one for sure -- the phrase "encodes the fundamental theorem of arithmetic" is just nonsense (the matrix has nothing at all to say about uniqueness), and I can't imagine anyone learning anything important about the FTA from that section. Both edits probably could be nuked on grounds of OR.  I don't know whether the first edit improves the article or if it is as out-of-place as the second one.  --JBL (talk) 14:36, 23 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Gahhh. Agree about the second edit above. For the first, some of those edits are a year old now. Its full of errors, or, at least, non-formulas that aren't properly layed out. The whole thing smells of original research, and it may or may not be correct, I certainly can't tell from a quick look at it. I don't want to tackle it; its tempting to just revert, but the user seems sophisticated enough to get a benefit of the doubt... linas (talk) 14:38, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, looking closer the first one is pretty bad, too (I'm not sure I can decipher the "recurrence" for T(n, k) as written). --JBL (talk) 14:40, 23 September 2012 (UTC)


 * At rhe very least there needs to be a formula for the matrix entries. A ref would be nice, too - Virginia-American (talk) 16:20, 23 September 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, the second edit (to Fundamental theorem of arithmetic) has now, as you put it, been "nuked". The rest is harder to unravel, and I'd prefer to leave it up to someone else with expertise in the subject. Jowa fan (talk) 01:43, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Also see this edit by the same user. --JBL (talk) 14:55, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Black hole topology
This unreferenced article appears to make no sense. Can anyone vouch for it, preferably by reference to reliable sources? Deltahedron (talk) 17:10, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Tried to tweak it but it really needs expert attention on GR/astrophysics/topology, hence tagged. Maschen (talk) 17:41, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Even if this title can have some article, it has to be rewritten completely. Stephen Hawking's result about the topology of the black hole horizont is not even mentioned. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:54, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Exactly. Maschen (talk) 18:00, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Why are we creating this article? Why not just prod or RFD it? As it currently stands, after extensive edits from Maschen, it does not appear to say anything wrong ... but 1) its essentially an orphan, nothing links to it but user and talk pages. 2) the title itself seems to be OR: although there are some famous theorems concerning the topology of black holes (e.g. the no-hair theorem, and others) none of these are even mentioned here. I could understand the need for a List of topological theorems about black holes, but certainly not this article, under this title... linas (talk) 15:09, 23 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I just rePRODded it now, see Articles for deletion/Black hole topology. Maschen (talk) 13:57, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/FAQ
The Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/FAQ currently explains "Why [it is] so difficult to learn mathematics from Wikipedia articles" (WP:NOTTEXTBOOK). Perhaps it would be a good idea if that section also briefly explained or pointed to what Wikipedia math articles are or do/what one can expect to get from them. In other words, a partially positive answer instead of a wholly negative one. Hyacinth (talk) 07:18, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:Set theory
Per a request by User:Trovatore that I stop by here and "[explain] what [I] have in mind": my intention was to create a template. I expected there already to be a discussion going on. Hyacinth (talk) 02:37, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Good work - surprising we didn't have one all this time, as far as I can tell. Maschen (talk) 02:44, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * On second thought are you really sure we need it? There is category:Set theory. Once there was physics equations which listed a massive number of equation articles by name and title and just kept increasing in size to an unreadable box of 100+ links. It was deleted because it became so big, and there is category:theoretical physics... Maschen (talk) 11:16, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Like Frankenstein's monster, set theory could support several (partially overlapping) templates.
 * Hyacinth's template is a good start on a template on elementary set theory, the kind used in undergraduate mathematics, especially for non-mathematicians or for mathematicians not at Moscow State University or Cambridge....
 * Hyacinth's template could have a link to advanced set theory, to indicate that its contents do not exhaust set theory. Other templates, e.g. entitled "advanced set theory" could discuss measurable cardinals, determinacy, etc. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  15:25, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * First, it's not my template. Secondly, Physics equations appears to have had about 25 links when it was deleted, the other 75(?) where on Physics equations (eponyms), both found on Physics equations navbox (Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_July_17). Hyacinth (talk) 01:58, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, there are two issues. One is, I thought the consensus here was that we just don't want nav templates on math articles.  We can certainly re-discuss that.
 * If we were to have them, yes, Hyacinth's is in the right direction for elementary set theory, but then maybe it should be called "Elementary Set Theory". --Trovatore (talk) 18:54, 15 September 2012 (UTC)


 * For simplicity, the word "elementary" set theory should be omitted, but a link to the article on advanced set-theory and a link to the category of set theory should suffice further further reading (and to alert the reader of the elementary nature of the template). Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  19:08, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Let's take the first issue first: Do we want nav templates at all?  They've generally been rejected when they've come up before. --Trovatore (talk) 19:42, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Can you point to this consensus? Hyacinth (talk) 02:12, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I do see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive_16 & Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive_18. Hyacinth (talk) 07:12, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
 * However, both of those refer to preexisting discussion or opinion. Hyacinth (talk) 03:01, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I find an argument that this template should not exist based on what it or other templates may become fairly weak. I also find the argument that math is somehow a special subject that is above having templates very weak, and insulting. Most of the arguments seem to boil down to this: it might take a lot of work and consideration, even discussion, to create a navigation template covering a math topic. Templates can fork, and more importantly, they can be limited in scope. Hyacinth (talk) 03:10, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

It would be a good idea to document the supposed aversion to navigation templates in math articles, perhaps at WikiProject Mathematics, so in the future one could point to that instead of to supposed or actual discussions. Hyacinth (talk) 02:59, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * By the way, the argument that we shouldn't have math navboxes is based on a false assumption, that we don't have them. We do. See e.g. Graph families defined by their automorphisms or Divisor classes navbox or Polygons, all of which are in active use. We also have some such as analysis-footer that don't seem to be so active. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:22, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That leaves us in a bind. We can't have math nav templates because there is opposition to them. We can't document that opposition because it doesn't exist. Hyacinth (talk) 07:48, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Hah!
 * Consensus against templates does not exist, while memories of bad templates are widely shared. It is reasonable to have a short template on elementary set-theory; you could consider the topics of the first chapter of a general (point-set) topology textbook, for example, or a course in discrete mathematics. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  09:19, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Nav boxes were hotly debated here, in 2006 or thereabouts. I remember there being a consensus against them, but maybe that is because I was on the winning side. Very roughly, the split was between senior/experienced/sophisticated editors/mathematicians, and young students trying to master the topics for the first time. For the young student, nav boxes are insanely great: they immediately clue you in on what topics are "important", in the sense of "will be on the mid-term/final exam". These are the core/central topics that you are expected to know and have mastered. But, for the old-timers, these templates are a distraction, a waste of space, and almost always have the wrong emphasis: they mix really important stuff with really trivial stuff. For old-timers, the "important stuff" are the deep theorems: ones perspective changes as one gets more sophisticated. viz: "set theory" vs. "elementary set theory": if you are an old-timer, then, indeed, that nav-box completely fails to mention the important topics of set theory; it only covers naive topics in elementary set theory. But if you're studying elementary set theory for the first time .... And so it goes...linas (talk) 15:54, 23 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Templates are like articles. If they are incomplete or biased they may be edited. Also, it sounds as if this split between students needs/old timers desires is split between basic topics and current events. Hyacinth (talk) 07:10, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, not so much in the case of set theory. Things like large cardinals and forcing are basic topics in set theory.  Stuff that's been central for half a century is not what I'd call recentism.
 * They're just not basic topics in elementary set theory, meaning the sort of set theory that people who aren't actually interested in set theory study. So that's my objection to the particular template &mdash; it tends to give a wrong idea of what set theory is.
 * On the more general issue, I'm willing to concede that it could be time to revisit the issue of whether math articles ought to have nav templates; I don't really like the idea but there might be some arguments for it. Let's have the discussion first, though, and the templates afterwards, depending on how it comes out.  --Trovatore (talk) 09:30, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * We're having the discussion. A summary so far: There exist useful and accepted mathematical nav-boxes (e.g. noted by David Eppstein), and there have been mathematical nav-boxes which have been deleted. Only Trovatore has written against the existence of an elementary set-theory nav-box (unless "elementary" be part of the title, which is an easily accommodated concern), as far as I can see, because he doesn't like nav-boxes and he thinks that an elementary set-theory template misrepresents set-theory. Thus, there does not seem to be consensus against an elementary set-theory nav-box.
 * Why not let Hyacinth work some more on the template. Let the discussion continue on the talk page of the template. He certainly will respond to suggestions for improvements of the nav-box. Kiefer  .Wolfowitz  09:56, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I used to be against nav-boxes, but perhaps I was wrong: there is a real need for some kind of easy list of elementary or core or central topics in a subject, aimed at the student. Categories fail to do this, since they can't be curated. List articles are .. ugly, inconvenient.  I imagine that it's the "at your finger-tips" aspect of the nav-boxes that is what the students really really appreciate.linas (talk) 16:01, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Intersect links in an article with a category
Is it easily possible to obtain a list containing the links in an article (or WP page, I'm interested in Pages_needing_attention/Mathematics) that fall in a certain category, say Category:Algebra? Thanks, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 18:37, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This may be implemented as a tool at Toolserver. The only thing this is not easy is the recursion (traversing) of categories – do you need Category:Algebra and all subcats, not only articles directly belonging to the category? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:21, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Binary numeral system
Maybe somebody is willing to talk there about [ this]. The dispute is neither civilized nor really important, but some participation from here can help me. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 16:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

mathematical research
I've created a page titled mathematical research that currently redirects to mathematics and is labeled via the standard template as a "redirect with possibilities".

I was looking at the article titled List of common misconceptions, and under "Mathematics" only one item was listed. I thought of adding another: Many educated people think that mathematics is a subject in which everything is already known, but in fact a vast torrent of new research keeps producing new discoveries, as much as in other sciences such as physics and biology. I read the list of inclusion criteria:
 * 1. The common misconception's including topic has an article of its own.
 * 2. The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception.
 * 3. The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources.
 * 4. The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete.

We all know that this is widely believed, but is that in fact sourced somewhere? In the course of thinking about that, I decided to look for the article titled mathematical research or mathematics research. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure that Hersh & Davis, The Mathematical Experience, has a section devoted to this. I don't have my copy with me at the moment, but I'll verify that in a couple of hours. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 20:43, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * My mistake. They do talk about the vast amount of new mathematics produced each year, but don't explicitly mention the misconception. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 03:21, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

In general I'm opposed to "misconceptions" language in WP articles. We're a reference work, not a pedagogical one. Let's just give the facts, and let the reader figure out what's a misconception. --Trovatore (talk) 03:30, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The claim "mathematics in now inactive" is trivially wrong, but here is a more problematic claim: "now mathematics produces only results that a non-mathematician cannot understand and therefore cannot use; mathematicians pretend to be still useful, but they are not". Boris Tsirelson (talk) 07:15, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Math is very seldom in the news; occasionally you see an article "new prime number discovered", and Andrew Wiles was in People magazine, but that's about it. - Virginia-American (talk) 09:07, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand and cannot use a whole lot that physicists or medical researchers come up with, but I still think they're useful. Rschwieb (talk) 15:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Is there a reliable source that states that either of these assertions (namely, "mathematics is a subject in which everything is already known" or "mathematicians pretend to be still useful, but they are not") is (1) a widely held opinion and (2) a misconception? Deltahedron (talk) 19:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that "mathematics is a subject in which everything is already known" was, may be, a widely held opinion in the middle of the 20th century, when the maths used by the engineers were stable for a long time. But this opinion is certainly no more common, with the covering by the medias of the proofs of Fermat's theorem and Poincaré's conjecture. But there are related misconceptions that are very common, even among mathematics teachers:
 * The new mathematical results concern only highly abstract mathematics that may be understood only by very few people.
 * Everything is known in the mathematics that everybody may understand (elementary algebra and elementary geometry, for example)
 * These misconceptions are enforced by the poor coverage by WP of the elementary mathematics that are not commonly taught in college or undergraduate courses. The quotation that I have inserted at the end of the lead of Polynomial factorization is a witness that there are misconceptions. About the poor coverage by WP of recent (and left recent) elementary mathematics, an example is given by the number of empty sections in polynomial factorization. Another example appears in a recent discussion in talk:algebraic curve, where I have listed the elementary items that are lacking in this article. D.Lazard (talk) 10:28, 30 September 2012 (UTC)