Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2015/Mar

Special character inserter for VisualEditor
VisualEditor’s special character inserter has been re-designed. The old “floating box” version will be replaced by the new, full-width design on Wednesday, 11 March – unless editors decide that they prefer the old one in time for it to be yanked out of the deployment train. This affects only VisualEditor. If you'd like to see the new design, then please click here to open the Sandbox at mediawiki.org. Leave your feedback at the VisualEditor/Feedback page on mediawiki.org.

I wanted to get this to you as soon as possible, so that anyone who is interested would have as much time as possible to think about the general concept. There are a few known problems that you'll want to keep in mind:
 * As of this morning, this sandbox only shows a small, basic set of special characters. However, the list of characters can be customized at each wiki, and, unlike the old design, it should be possible to expand it without filling the whole screen.
 * There is a known bug about the special character tool (neither the old one nor the new one) not working inside most of the tools, including the Formula editor. This will be addressed separately.

The devs need a wide variety of feedback, but the main question is whether this general concept is better than the original concept. Please post your comments at mediawiki.org, where the devs will see them sooner. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:26, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Apeirotope: factual accuracy
Perhaps someone here can contribute to the factual-accuracy issue I raised at Talk:Apeirotope. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:22, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I wish it were the only article on polytopes that deserved such a tag. &mdash; Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 20:22, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Discrete-Stable distribution
Your comments on Draft:Discrete-Stable distribution are welcomed. Use, or use directly in the draft. -- Sam Sailor Talk! 23:27, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Kirkwood-Buff solution theory
Your comments on Draft:Kirkwood-Buff solution theory are welcomed. Use, or use directly in the draft. -- Sam Sailor Talk! 00:31, 9 March 2015 (UTC)


 * This is a physics article. WT:PHYSICS would provide better advice.  Ozob (talk) 02:48, 9 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks, draft is now in mainspace. -- Sam Sailor Talk! 18:28, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Polynomial least squares
Your comments on Draft:Polynomial least squares are welcomed. Use, or use directly in the draft. -- Sam Sailor Talk! 18:29, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Coin problem and postage stamp problem
Before I think about trying to merge them, I thought I should check: is there any reason that these are two separate articles? --JBL (talk) 14:23, 12 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Although these problems are very similar, they are distinct. The number of stamps one can use has an upper bound, but there is no upper bound for the number of coins one can use. In the case of stamps, one is looking for a minimum. In the case of coins, one is looking for a maximum. They should link to each other and they do. I see no need to merge them. JRSpriggs (talk) 14:55, 12 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I think I was thrown by the recently-added (and false) statement in the lead of postage stamp problem that asserted it was given by the Frobenius number.  I've now removed that statement, and all seems well. --JBL (talk) 15:14, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

LaTeX versus HTML again
Could anyone weigh in at Talk:Hilbert transform regarding LaTeX versus HTML issues? I'm not sure what our current recommendation is regarding inline mathematics (presumably math). It seems like Hilbert transform has made something of an effort to avoid rendering inline PNG images, and now someone wants to change that. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:46, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It does not make sense to call any of the software used here "LaTeX". LaTeX does typesetting; it keeps track of page numbers, section numbers, etc., one can use style files in it that control all sorts of formatting and stylistic things. One can use mathematical notation in it, and the code largely looks like what is used on Wikipedia, but that is light-years away from meaning that what's done on Wikiepdia is LaTeX. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:05, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok. But that doesn't really suggest an alternative.  I propose "PigTeX" (for Pidgin LaTeX).   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 23:32, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Probabilistic solution discovery algorithm
Opinions are now timely at Articles for deletion/Probabilistic solution discovery algorithm. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:24, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Always a link to namesake?
In general, Foo's Theorem or Bar's Constant should contain a link to the Mathematician (Foo or Bar) who it is named for, right?Naraht (talk) 18:24, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems reasonable in the abstract; is there some dispute involving a particular example? --JBL (talk) 18:33, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * True if the mathematician has an article, but not necessarily if the mathematician is known only for this theorem or constant (see WP:1E). In any case, please, avoid red links, unless if you plan to write the article in a near future. In the other case, instead of a link, add a single sentence saying who is this mathematician. D.Lazard (talk) 18:37, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * No Redlinks intended, just missed that something that I thought was an article of that type was a redirect.Naraht (talk) 18:46, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, it is not necessary and often harmful to interpolate, distracting the reader who might not even remember how the sentence started, the link to the namesake into the first sentence of the article. Better to include only the more important information about the subject in the first sentence (like what it is), and mention the namesake only later in the first section. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:49, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with David. Generally, we should include the namesake somewhere in the lead of the article, but not generally in the first sentence.  The first sentence has a tough enough job already without overburdening it with mandatory details.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 19:15, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with D.Lazard about red links. I think: Michael Hardy (talk) 18:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Red links are appropriate if existence of an article on the topic is appropriate and the link is relevant to the article in which it appears. And I seem to recall that that is a Wikipedia policy.
 * Regardless of whether an article ought to exist about John Xmith, after whom Xmith's theorem is named, the article titled "Xmith's theorem" should say who it's named after.
 * Our convention is _not_ to write "Xmith's Theorem" or "Zmigh's Constant" but "Xmith's theorem" with a lower-case "t" and "Zmight's constant" with a lower-case "c".

I do not oppose or support their edits, but we may need to clean up pages so the article structure makes sense. &mdash;George8211 / T 10:48, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * This appears to refer to the creation of large numbers of articles on numbers in the range 701–899. It appears all have been restored to be redirects again, and has been blocked for disruptive editing. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:29, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Generalized Functional Linear Model
Hi at WP:AFC there is a draft called Draft:Generalized Functional Linear Model. To me it looks as if it is a valid topic. But could some here keen on Statistics take a look to see if the content looks valid? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:12, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Any way to update the 500 most frequently viewed articles list?
I'd be interested in updating the list found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0/Frequently_viewed/List, which was last edited in 2009. Does anyone know what methods I can use to find the most-viewed mathematics articles as of this year?Brirush (talk) 18:27, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * You probably know this, but anyways; from "page information" you can find "page view statistics" and see the number of views per day in diagram form. It remains to find out how this info can be gathered easily for all math articles, summed up over a period of time, averaged, and ordered. YohanN7 (talk) 18:59, 17 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I guess there is a bot that does this, you might want to inquire at the technical village pump. If you feel like doing it yourself, all page view data is collected at http://dumps.wikimedia.org/other/pagecounts-raw/; it is a lot of data to download, then you would have to filter according to a current list of math articles, and sort. It might be easiest to try to track down the bot. --Mark viking (talk) 21:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Template:Sfrac
What are our opinions on the template sfrac? This produces fractions in html, like $a⁄b$. It was recently deployed at Pi. I have two concerns over the use: one is that it enlarges the line spacing between adjacent text lines, which overall is rather unsightly. Secondly, I noticed that in chrome on my mobile, the vinculum is the baseline of the surrounding text, which is much too low, giving inline expressions a very lopsided appearance. My impression was that once upon a time, we recommended against using PNGs that were tall enough to mess with the line spacing. If so, perhaps this template should indicate that it should only be used sparingly inline, if at all. The recent additions of the template at Pi seem rather gratuitous. For instance, $22⁄7$ instead of a perfectly acceptable $22/7$. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:18, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * MOS:FRAC is the leading guideline. It allows both methods.  22:19, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Sławomir's question is about opinions of style (which could influence the MoS), not about what the MoS currently says. I share the concern about the template, and any other formatting that does not keep line spacing uniform. My Firefox browser on my mobile does something else that's even worse: it vertically stacks a 22 over a solidus over a vinculum over a 7, with a full line gap from previous line. I think that the MoS should prefer the 22/7 format in general due to the line spacing effect on all browsers. —Quondum 01:01, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * In most inline equations, and certainly for $22/7$, a solidus is superior to a vinculum. (In displayed equations, the vinculum may be superior.)  A vinculum widens the vertical spacing and requires the numerator and denominator to be in a small font.  If an equation would be easier to read with a vinculum, that's a sign that the equation should be displayed instead of being inline.  For that reason I think the desirable uses of sfrac are highly limited.  Ozob (talk) 14:34, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I tried another experiment to see how sfrac looks on the desktop versus mobile site. On the desktop site (as viewed from a mobile device), the vinculum is too low (as already noted).  But on the mobile site, it is completely broken.  See .   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 15:21, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure where the right place to bring this up is. It seems to me that our MOS should not unreservedly recommend this template, since it is broken on the mobile site (which constitutes 30% of Wikipedia views).  My suggestion is that the MOS should indicate this, and recommend that the template be used sparingly.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 12:35, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The immediate thing to do is to have the thing fixed. A recommendation is MOS (while I support it) will only have a small and long term effect. There are potentially thousands (choose your prefix) of places where it is used today. Village pump? YohanN7 (talk) 12:55, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * . Missing style in Mobile.css.  13:11, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Did you see how easy and quick that was Do you actually mean this is fixed globally, or on your mobile? Your user profile indicates you actually can fix things like this... YohanN7 (talk) 13:58, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It is fixed for anyone here on English Wikipedia. fixed it.   16:24, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Kernel function for solving integral equation of surface radiation exchanges
What should be done with Kernel function for solving integral equation of surface radiation exchanges? I did a bunch of obvious copy-editing, and I hesitate to attempt to write a lead section. If the article ought to exist, a proper lead section should be added. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:42, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Serpentine curve
The article titled Serpentine curve is very short. There must be immensely more one can say about this topic. It is about curves whose equation is
 * $$ y = \frac {abx}{x^2+a^2}. $$

Michael Hardy (talk) 23:43, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Addition has been nominated as a featured article
After passing its good article nomination a few weeks ago, I have nominated addition for featured article status. If it goes well, I would like to go through and improve some more of our Top Importance Good Articles and nominate them as featured articles, one at a time. If anyone is interested in helping out, let me know, especially since I have never tried a FA nomination before.Brirush (talk) 17:41, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I should mention that it may be helpful for members of the WikiProject Mathematics community to help with the review process (which needs input from many editors), pointing out deficiencies in the article or supporting its nomination. It may be difficult for editors in other areas to work through the abstract algebra sections, for instance.Brirush (talk) 21:44, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Hilbert geometry
I've created a new disambiguation page titled Hilbert geometry, listing three items. Perhaps the present company can improve it. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:03, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Robert Langlands
Dear mathematicians: There is an extensive article about this mathematician in today's Toronto Star. I have added a citation to his page, but more information from the article could be cited by someone whose math is less rusty. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 21:18, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Migration of cite arxiv
The Cite arXiv template is being updated to be more consistent with other citation templates. This is likely to introduce some red error messages in existing Cite arXiv templates that use unsupported parameters or that should be converted to Cite journal. Please see this discussion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:01, 31 March 2015 (UTC)