Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2006/Sep

message: I've listed McNugget number for AFD.  This is the second nom (first was by somebody else in October).  AFD discussion page People may be interested in looking over the first discussion, which ended as "no consensus".  --C S (Talk) 01:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[McNugget number]] is up for AFD 

message: User:EulerGamma recently removed a section about multidimensional generalizations from the Gaussian integral article for being "complicated" and lacking sources. The topic is real, but the lack of sources for the details is a valid complaint. Unfortunately, the original author seems to have been inactive for several months. I'm sure some people here are knowledgeable enough to check the content (I'm not); please have a look if you do. Fredrik Johansson 20:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multidimensional Gaussian integrals 

message: Please see this page for the discussion. Borisblue 00:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Leonhard Euler]] is up for FAC

message: Dmharvy, here is your link. zh:Wikipedia talk:数学兴趣小组维基人列表----Hillgentleman 03:41, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathematical Wikiers in Chinese 

message: New user WATARU appears to me to be almost certainly User:WAREL. However he hasn't yet done any of the things that got him banned before. Let's keep an eye out, but not provoke. "Don't start none, won't be none", as Huey P Freeman would say. --Trovatore 20:30, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: see . --Trovatore 18:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

text: And he is insisting on using the Big Omega function on square number, where it is pointless showing off. (See diffs: .)  Given the number of complaints we get for being technical where we have to be, there is no excuse for this in an article that proves that the squares of odd numbers are odd. Septentrionalis 19:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: User:WATARU

message: For a list see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Current_activity/Lists#Articles_that_are_too_technical.  I've noticed, as I'm sure others have, that sometimes well-meaning editors just go through mathematical articles tagging them as "too technical".  For example simple module has been tagged; however, I don't really see why it was tagged other than it looks like "gobbly-gook" to someone who doesn't know what a ring or module is.  I can't see how this article can really be improved in a significant way to be accessible to someone without such a background.  Perhaps an example built from the ground up would help...but that would seem to be the equivalent of writing a wikibook on abstract algebra.  In any case, I believe this article (and some others) have been tagged wrongly. 
The unfortunate thing about all this is that it makes it hard to find the actual overly-technical articles that  can be made much more accessible.  As a first step to making articles more accessible, therefore, I suggest that some people take some time and untag as many articles as they can -- those that are very advanced topics or seem to have been made as accessible as possible.  --C S (Talk) 02:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a sentence about graphical projection to Projection (linear algebra) and removed the tags.  There wasn't anything in the talk page about why the tags were added.  User:ST47 who added the "technical" tag was bot assisted.  User:Srleffler added the original tag didn't leave any explanation.  It seems Srleffler's attention was drawn to the article through graphical projection; they also left the same tag on projection (relational algebra) which Jon Awbrey summarily removed.  Guess it's just another example of what you're talking about.  (I know it's just one article.  Sorry.)  Lunch 23:15, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: got a bunch more.  btw, it seems the current activity list hasn't been updated in a couple of weeks.  did the bot run out of gas?  Lunch 04:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles tagged as too technical 

message: I've changed to a far better version while trying to incorporate some of the recent factual additions.  But the previous version definitely had way too much speculation, ramblings, and just poor sourcing.  Given the number of people (although maybe some of the IPs are really the same person), who have edited it into this state, I think it's wise if people keep an eye on this page.  --C S (Talk) 06:04, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of the details are from Sabbagh's book, but I have not seen it recently enough to edit. Septentrionalis 20:32, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:BLP]] violation at [[Louis de Branges de Bourcia]] 

message: I created extension (mathematics) as a new disambiguation page with more than 30 entries.  I think it ought to get organized into sections and subsections.  Could Wikipedia's many mathematicians please help? Michael Hardy 21:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I put them into some vague sections, people should feel free to subdivide further.  Of course, most of these are algebra. -- Deville (Talk) 22:02, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, I thought it was weird, so I changed Group extension to mention only groups and added a link at the bottom to Ring extension.  This is a stub that could be greatly expanded.  The article Extension problem actually has a lot of the material I would put in Group extension if it were up to me.  Ah, if I only had the time... VectorPosse 19:03, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What problems would result from just switching the names around? Michael Kinyon 20:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like it!  If we did that, we would need to restore the few words I removed (probably with some editing), but I think this is a great idea.  The page Extension problem ought to be a small-ish, more general page about any kind of extension problem.  Then its links direct readers to the particulars of specific kinds of extensions.  There is something in the page's discussion about calling it Extension (algebra) (which currently redirects to Group extension) and I think that would be necessary for this solution.  Otherwise, one would have to include material on extension problems in all fields and that would be the same list that started this thread to begin with.  VectorPosse 23:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems fine to me. I am going on a Wikibreak for a bit more than a week starting tonight, and you have thought in more detail about what would be needed than I have. So my "vote" is: go for it! Anyone else have any thoughts about this? Michael Kinyon 03:47, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Please help with [[extension (mathematics)]]

message: There is a discussion occurring at Euclidean space concerning how best to write the introduction to be more accessible (see: Talk:Euclidean space#Obnoxious article and following). Interested parties may wish to join the discussion. Paul August ☎ 23:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion at [[Euclidean space]] 

message: Boy's surface (talk) is up for peer review. Please offer any insights (there, not here).—msh210℠ 21:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review: Boy's surface 

message: Martingale paradox has been put up for deletion: Wikipedia: Articles for deletion/Martingale paradox.  The author has spent a lot of effort on Usenet at promoting this material, e.g.  (see User:AntiochCollege for suspiciously similar material). --C S (Talk) 00:21, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Martingale paradox]] 

message: Hi everyone!  An article that I've been working on quite a bit, Polar coordinate system, has just become a good article.  We've requested a peer review to find out how it can be improved to featured article status, and it's great so far.  Any other comments would be appreciated.  Thanks. —Mets501 (talk) 14:20, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Polar coordinate system]] 

message: I've been working on a few pages lately that have the flavor of geometric graph theory — that is, about graphs that are either embedded in a geometric space themselves, or that arise from configurations in a geometric space. I'm wondering whether it would be appropriate to make a new category for them, as a subcategory of both geometry and graph theory.
*Existing pages that could add or change to include this as a category: Fáry's theorem, Unit disk graph, Crossing number (graph theory), Interval graph, Graph drawing, Visibility graph, Visibility graph analysis, Euclidean minimum spanning tree, Scheinerman's conjecture
*Redlinks: Intersection graph, Gabriel graph, Nearest neighbor graph, Unit distance graph
*Potential additional topics: Boxicity, Sphericity (of an intersection graph, would need a different name than the unrelated existing Sphericity page), Steinitz's theorem
Evidence that organizing things this way is not just my own hobby horse: Pach's edited collection Towards a Theory of Geometric Graphs (to which I contributed a paper on geometric thickness, a subject that would fit here as well but one that I think someone else should add if it deserves adding).
Anyway, this seems a widespread enough change that I felt I should open up the question for debate here rather than just going ahead and doing it. So, does anyone have an opinion on this possible reorganization? —David Eppstein 21:30, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Category:Geometric graph theory sounds good to me. --Salix alba (talk) 21:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't know if it will be so easy to make the distinction between Geometric Graph Theory and Topological Graph Theory. For instance: the usual crossing number is of topological nature, while the rectilinear crossing number is of geometric nature. Don't you think it could be better to (at least temporarily) merge the two in a Topological and Geometric Graph Theory subcategory? Of course, there are purely topological or geometric results (rotation system / Erdős–Szekeres theorem) but most have several aspects. Graph drawings may rely on spectral analysis or poset related properties (like track drawing). The classification of theoretical results may also be problematic (e.g.: Schnyder's theorem is about planarity, poset dimension, decompositions into particular forests, and induce a straight line drawing on a linear grid). All of this does not mean I am against subcategories, but rather that I am afraid by the number of topics which will cross the boundaries of categories. pom 21:59, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To me the distinction seems clear enough: topological graph theory concerns graphs embedded on 2-manifolds such as the Euclidean plane, with vertices as points and edges as curves, while geometric graph theory either considers similar type embeddings with edges as straight line segments or other restricted geometric curves (polygonal paths with few bends, or circular arcs, though I doubt there is much already in WP that mentions these), or graphs coming from other geometric constructions (intersection graphs, visibility graphs, arrangements, etc). But of course there is overlap between the two; fortunately WP allows entries to have multiple categories. Perhaps I shouldn't have included Crossing number (graph theory) above since it's about the topological version of the problem; it's a long article so it might make sense to have a separate article on Rectilinear crossing number or Geometric crossing number (two different names for the same thing).  Fáry's theorem seems like a good example of an article that overlaps both categories since it states that a topological graph has a stricter geometric representation; Scheinerman's conjecture is also of that type. —David Eppstein 03:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are fully right. pom 05:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subcategory for geometric graph theory? 

message: Leonhard Euler is nominated for Featured Article status. I know that the nominator of the article has already posted this 10 days ago on this talk page but I think it would also be worth putting the info more prominently on the welcome page of the project. There's not that much work left to do on it to push it up to the desired quality and it's clearly a goal that should be among the project's priorities. Pascal.Tesson 23:44, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In related news I've put Ackermann function on FA review. I think it lacks in laymans explination and is not up to current FA standards. --Salix alba (talk) 00:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Speaking of which the primitive recursive article is also in a very sad state. But I digress. Pascal.Tesson 06:17, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we put the Leonhard Euler FAC nomination on the project page? 

message: I just contributed here calculating something. It would be nice if someone could verify what i wrote, because it seems the article contains a mistake. Nerdi 17:50, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  the apes are in question 

message: I was going to move the link to the musical ensemble The Exponents from list of exponential topics to exponent (disambiguation) and add this (using the "dablink" template, since the various "otheruses" and "alternateuses" templates are an odious and execrable abomination abhored by all good people):
But the latter page does not exist.  This caused me to notice that the list of exponential topics is quite incomplete as a list of Wikipedia articles already existing that belong there.  Here's what needs to be done:
* Enter "exponent" in the search bar and click "search", not "go".
* Add to the list of exponential topics the mathematics articles that belong there.
* Add to a new exponent (disambiguation) page the many "exponent" topics on non-mathematics topics, and also add the list of exponential topics to that page after a few of the most prominent mathematical senses of the word, with a note saying the list is fairly long.
I'll be back later to participate in this, but maybe not till tomorrow. Michael Hardy 21:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Exponents of mathematics, please help with this

message: Ackermann function is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 15:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Ackermann function]]

message: It's not in any math categories, so it won't show up on current activity; listing here. --Trovatore 21:15, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: and current activity hasn't updated for a week; is something wrong? Septentrionalis 23:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[256^(4.7*10^9)]] on prod

message: Hi. If you still have work to do tagging talk pages and assessing articles, my AWB plugin might be of interest to you.
The plugin has two main modes of operation:
*Tagging talk pages, great for high-speed tagging
*Assessments mode, for reviewing articles (pictured)
As of the current version, WikiProjects with simple "generic" templates are supported by the plugin without the need for any special programatic support by me. I've had a look at your project's template and you seem to qualify.
For more information see:
*About the plugin
*About support for "generic" WikiProject templates
*User guide
*About AWB (AutoWikiBrowser)
Hope that helps. If you have any questions or find any bugs please let me know on the plugin's talk page. --Kingboyk 14:01, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tagging talk pages and assessing articles

message: Order 3 groups are cyclic proof is up for deletion. Chime in at the appropriate spot. Michael Kinyon 00:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Order 3 groups are cyclic proof]]

message: This page was tagged as needing attention.  It was a stub which simply stated the theorem in question.  I have expanded it quite a bit, and removed the tag; I hope that my edits were sufficient to do so!  My expansion has centred mainly on the application of the theorem, in quantum mechanics and the philosophy thereof.  On the talk page, someone suggested sketching an outline of the proof of the theorem, which could be a worthwhile addition at some stage, but since most references to the theorem are centred on its uses and implications, this is probably not necessary at the moment (the proof is also hideously long and complicated, and not easy to summarise for an encyclopaedia article).  Anyway, I wanted to find out the following.  Now that the tag is gone, does your magical bot remove the page from the "needing attention" lists your project maintains?  Or should I do that manually?  I didn't want to just go ahead and do it, in case it interferes with the bot somehow...do let me know! Byrgenwulf 18:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: thanks!  the article certainly no longer is a stub (and the "expert needed" tag was probably misplaced).  and don't worry, the 'bot will eventually pick up on the tags.  Lunch 05:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe this should be raised on the article's talk page, but I don't get the bit about P(y) being 1 for every lattice point y. Is 0 not also a lattice point? Doesn't this require y to be the sum of n (instead of any r) orthogonal atoms? And if true, isn't "the probability is fixed" a weak way of saying: the event is almost sure? --LambiamTalk 07:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a typo...the "=1" shouldn't have been there (it's gone now).  So: any y can be expressed as the union of some (not necessarily n) number of orthogonal atoms xi.  The probability P(y) is the sum of the probabilities P(xi) (all r of them).  "The probability is fixed" simply means "uniquely determined" in this context.  Byrgenwulf 10:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding the bot, there is some problem with the computer on which it runs. I'm on the other side of the planet and can't reach the computer remotely. I should be able to bring it up next week after I return to my office. Sorry about the problems (but it is nice to see that people are noticing). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Gleason's theorem]] 

message: Ear curve is up for deletion. Opine at its AfD page. Michael Kinyon 11:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Ear curve]]

message: There seems to be disagreement over whether the term basis function is used in functional analysis.
I don't know enough about the subject to have an opinion. Could someone comment at Talk:Basis function? --Jtir 13:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a problem with the weakness of the article. There must be several areas, eg wavelets, where this is a relevant concept. Charles Matthews 13:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Correct.  I looked at the what links here list and found wavelets, plus articles in chemistry, physics, engineering, and business that link to Basis function (I've put a culled, classified, and alphabetized list of linked articles at Talk:Basis_function). A wikipedia search finds many other examples of the term being used. It is starting to seem to me that making the article a dab would be preferable to trying explain all possible uses of the term. I don't have enough WP experience, though, to know what the implications are. --Jtir 21:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

text: A dab page makes mainly sense if we have separate articles on different meanings of the words "basis function". In mathematical use, isn't there a common meaning: an element of some basis of a vector space whose elements are functions? The main problem of the article may be that it starts with the words "In functional analysis" instead of "In mathematics". --LambiamTalk 22:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: an intro sentence might be, "In mathematics -- particularly analysis -- a basis function is an element of the basis for a function space.  The use of the term is analogous to basis vector for a vector space."  (NB: some of those words are dab pages so the links are Analysis (mathematics) and Basis (linear algebra).)  Lunch 00:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: With this formulation, couldn't all the technical content of the article be removed?  Basically the article is saying that basis function is a synonym for basis vector in some usages. If so, the article could become a redirect to basis (?) which could parenthetically note the same thing. --Jtir 16:10, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

text: (I'm gonna CC the conversation here to the basis function talk page.  There's some good stuff here that hasn't been mentioned there, and vice versa (along with some repeats).  Come on over and join in!)  Lunch 19:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  In which subject areas is the term ''basis function'' used? 

message: Being realtively new to wikipedia I'm not sure where to post this so it's going here. Something has gone wrog with the LaTeX interpreter on wikipedia so that maths pages are full of lots of raw LaTeX.
Bernard Hurley 23:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems that the server of formula PNGs (http://upload.wikimedia.org/) is unreachable. As a consequence, PNG formulas only appear in their HTML version. pom 23:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some images also seem to be broken. I suspect this is a tempory problem which will be fixed in a few hours. Its happened before. --Salix alba (talk) 00:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you tried control-shift-R? For several days now, I have occassionally been seeing the formulas unconverted. But they always become correct after control-shift-R. JRSpriggs 06:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is curious because the LaTeX interpreter is on the server. I can't test this because the problem seems to have gone away, but thanks for the suggestion. Bernard Hurley 08:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you visted the page while the PNGs are not accesible, the HTML version could be stored in the cache and so appear even after the problem is gone. Purging the cache when everything is working again would fix this problem. JPD (talk) 10:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Something has gone wrong with LaTeX interpreter 

message: On Wikipedia talk:Good article candidates they have been reworking the criteria, which now currently require the use of inline cites. This resulted in all 11 of our mathematic GA receiving a message warning that the articles may be up for review. Lots of other articles also received the same messages and the physists especially have visiforously protested against the change. Theres now an atempt to reach a consensus on the issue. This particularly affect maths articles as we tend not to use inline cites for the main mathematical content, in Wikipedia:Featured article review/Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace use of manitory inline cites was contested. 
People might like the add their views at on the issue at Wikipedia talk:Good article candidates. --Salix alba (talk) 18:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good articles and inline cites 

message: I nominated this for deletion. The discussion is at :Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Math wars. Comments are welcome. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[:Category:Math wars]]

message: I am not a historian, so I probably should not really comment, but is the history section under Mathematical Analysis article seems a bit too good to be true.  I did some reading up on the MacTutor math history site.  It doesn't seem to indicate that calculus was known in india in  the 12th-14th century.  Is this really true?  In terms of verifiability all I found in any of the articles was a link to some physics prof's web site.  Does anyone know more? Thenub314 00:30, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of Analysis article 

message: To my eyes Addition seems to be a good quality article. It might be an idea to put it forward to Wikipedia:Good article candidates, if anyone willing to defend it. BTW it is well cited with both inline and overal cites. --Salix alba (talk) 16:30, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA status for Addition? 

message: I know you've been having similar concerns about citations and Good Articles here as we have over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics. I have a proposal to deal with this debacle. Let's establish, by consensus within the project, a set of guidelines for referencing physics and mathematics articles in Wikipedia. Then, at least, we will have a set of clear guidelines and an established consensus to refer to if we start having problems with WP:GA and WP:FA. I think if we write a reasonable set of guidelines, which respect WP:V and WP:CITE, we'll get little argument from the vast majority of the people over there.
I have already written a proposal, available here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines proposal. It definitely has a whiff of the first draft about it (some sentences seem pretty tortured), but I'm confident we can bang it into something that is clear and concise. I've tried to write the guidelines in such a way that they don't apply just to physics, although the examples are (by necessity) taken from articles I'm familiar with. I'm hoping that we can get the editors from both WikiProjects (physics and mathematics) to form some kind of a consensus for referencing our articles, which would give it increased legitimacy: we could incorporate the guidelines into both our projects.
To keep the discussion (semi-)unified, please comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics/Citation guidelines proposal. –Joke 16:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I urge the participants here to go over the proposal and help reach concensus. I expect it will carry more weight if it is a joint proposal of two active WikiProjects.  --LambiamTalk 23:16, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation guidelines proposal 

message: History of mathematical notation is seeking peer review. --Salix alba (talk) 19:02, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of mathematical notation - peer review