Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2006/Aug

message: I have requested adminship, largely to deal with the backlogs of move and discussion pages. Since Oleg endorses, I think I can mention it here. See Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Pmanderson. Septentrionalis 20:50, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Am I the main math admin lobby or what? :) Good luck! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:55, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Adminship requested

message: Hello,
as you can see I am on the list of participants of the Math Project.  I'm still not experienced in creating my own articles.
Any quick look at 
Ovoid (polar space) would be appreciated, also because of the fact that English is not my native language (I do my best though).
And one fundamental question : what to do with these ovoids, they are often only treated in the case of finite polar spaces, while in fact there isn't exactly anything wrong with the definition for infinite polar spaces.
Thanks a lot,
Evilbu 22:32, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What's lacking most are the references. --LambiamTalk 02:24, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You could probably say the same about polar space though at least there's a wiki-link to Tits there.  Lunch 02:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Use Google scholar as a starting point, and the library resources of your university to find good references, usually either a textbook, or the original articles introducing the concepts. Another acceptable source is the Encyclopaedia of Mathematics. Make sure the article agrees with the reference. --LambiamTalk 18:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ovoids in polar spaces 

message: An anonymous contributor has edited A. Cohn's irreducibility criterion to claim that the criterion has been proved to hold for the case n=2, whereas the relevant PlanetMath page says that this is a conjecture. The contributor provided the following link to a dvi file as a reference. I cannot read the dvi file, but I think it contains an article by number theorist Ram Murty published in Amer. Math. Monthly, Vol. 109 (2002), no. 5, 452-458. Perhaps someone with a dvi reader, or with access to the journal itself, can verify that this paper does indeed provide a proof for the case n=2 ? Gandalf61 10:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It gives a new proof for the n>2 case, then a long discussion and another lemma claimed to give the n=2 case as well. JPD (talk) 11:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: JPD - thank you for the prompt response. Gandalf61 15:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, it seems the Planet Math page is very outdated, giving as the only reference Polya and Szego vol 2, which is actually a very old book: the 1998 version is just a reprint of the 1976 English edition which was translated and revised by someone other than the original authors.  Furthermore the 1976 German edition (according to Math Reviews reviewer) differs very little from the original 1925 edition.  In any case, the Murty paper mentioned above gives as the first reference a 1981 paper which proves Cohn's theorem for any base (Brillhart, John; Filaseta, Michael; Odlyzko, Andrew On an irreducibility theorem of A. Cohn. Canad. J. Math. 33 (1981), no. 5, 1055--1059.)  The review for it on MathSciNet notes that the original Cohn theorem was mentioned in Polya and Szego.  So it seems this conjecture has been known to be closed for quite a while.  --C S (Talk) 02:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I updated the article  A. Cohn's irreducibility criterion to reflect Brillhart et al's priority for the n=2 case.  In a future edit I hope to change the letters used for certain subscripts to agree with the Ram Murty paper, because using 'n'  it is easy to confuse the base used with the degree of the polynomial.  The other improvement that might be suggested is to change the title to 'Cohn's Irreducibility Criterion', because Wikipedia's search function is too feeble to return this article in the first screen when you type in 'A. Cohn'. EdJohnston 22:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verifying a reference 

message: I wonder if there are any comments on this edit (please write them at talk:derivative). Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you mean to say write comments at Talk:Antiderivative? I don't see much need for discussion; the matter was already considered and decided long ago, at the top of the talk page. Are you suggesting it should be reconsidered? (Follow-ups to talk.) --KSmrqT 03:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antiderivative 

message: Please help with adding the various mathematical analyses of the game Fetch (game) to the article.  (See the references and further reading given in the article.) Uncle G 10:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The process by which a dog tries to catch a ball may be similar to the way that a fielder in baseball tries to catch a ball which has been hit in his general direction. I know that that has been analyzed mathematically, but I do not remember the details. JRSpriggs 05:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mathematics needed 

message: All mathematics editors should be alert to the ongoing behavior of Bo Jacoby (talk). In article after article Bo has tried to use invented (original research) notation. Then Bo lures others into endless discussions on the talk pages, where a host of editors again and again waste their time saying the same thing: "Don't do it." Examples include
* Talk:Function (mathematics)
* Talk:Root of unity
* Talk:Discrete Fourier transform
* Talk:Exponentiation
* Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ordinal fraction
A related wrong-headed persistence has been seen at Talk:Wilkinson's polynomial. I do not know the cause nor the intent of this behavior, but we need to find some effective way to deal with it. Patient responses on article talk pages have not been effective. Please be vigilant to catch more abuses, and please do not let Bo turn article talk pages into his own chat room. --KSmrqT 14:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would add to that talk:polynomial and talk:formal power series. I believe we are dealing with a person without formal math education, and it takes a long time (and many editors sometimes) to convince him that he is wrong. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Aha, I would also add Talk:Lebesgue integration. That explains a lot.--CSTAR 16:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And Talk:Binomial transform. Bo's behaviour, while annoying and disruptive, is minor in comparison to some of the mono-maniacal and outrageous behaviour I've seen recently seen (e.g. my talk page, ughhh). linas 03:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Lamest where it applies. Charles Matthews 21:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Could someone check out inferential statistics?  This is an article that seems to have been largely written by Bo.  Statistics is not my field, but some of the technical terms defined in the article, like "deduction distribution function" and "induction distribution function", don't seem to appear anywhere else on the web (at least, not with the same meaning).  A closer look by a statistician might be warranted. Another article largely written by him, in which he cites his own publications, is Durand-Kerner method.  Again, I have not checked this and make no claim as to whether it is good or bad, but it might be worth a closer look given Bo's past behavior.  —Steven G. Johnson 15:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Durand-Kerner is ok, he earlier claimed to be the inventor of the method, since he did not find related information, but changed or allowed to change to the more usual name. The method is, as it seems, not widely known, but (personal communication by prof. Yakoubsohn at Toulose) common knowledge in the root finding community.--LutzL 17:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's still the vanity link/redirect at Jacoby%27s method.  Lunch 20:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Also, in the article to which this redirect points, Durand-Kerner method, there are two references to Bo Jacoby added by Bo Jacoby.  Being relatively new to all of this, I'm not sure if this counts as WP:NOR or not. VectorPosse 22:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

text: See also Talk:Fourier transform. —Steven G. Johnson 16:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem editor 

message: Should QED be:
# a page about the phrase quod erat demonstrandum, with a dablink to QED (disambiguation),
# a page about quantum electrodynamics, with a dablink to QED (disambiguation), or
# a disambiguation page, with links to both the above and to lesser uses.
My opinion is clearly (3), but come share yours at talk:QED (disambiguation). --Trovatore 20:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You have shown via your question that the term is ambiguous; therefore, it should be a disambiguation page.  QED Ryan Reich 20:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The discussion is taking place at talk:QED (disambiguation), not here; this is just a notice. --Trovatore 20:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

text: At least admit that it was good for a chuckle. Ryan Reich 20:57, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You could have that on your tombstone. Charles Matthews 21:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll take mushroom, black olive, and anchovies. --Trovatore 22:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had pizza that chewed like marble myself...Septentrionalis 01:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Oppose anchovies.  --C S (Talk) 04:56, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Meaning of QED

message: Starts 22 August, I believe. It would be good if we geared up for the Fields Medal awards. By which I mean: get ready with a story to offer the Main Page here; have articles ready on Terence Tao and Grigori Perelman who are the hot tips; be prepared to do something quick and dirty for anyone else on the list. Compared to 2002, the world's press are likely to turn to enWP for enlightenment, as soon as the news hits the wires. Charles Matthews 21:18, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Uh, so who else is on the list?  --C S (Talk) 05:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

text: A Google Image search turns up photos for everyone, rights status unknown. --KSmrqT 12:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps self-avoiding random walk could start as a section of Random walk before being spun off on its own. Michael Kinyon 15:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ICM Madrid

message: I cordially invite the partisipants of this project to the newly founded wikiversity school of Mathematics. We are still working out the policies, but any help is appreciated. --Rayc 23:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikiversity Mathematics School open  

message: Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace 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 22:04, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A novice editor has created an article for the Jacobi eigenvalue algorithm; a few fixes there could be a big help as well. --KSmrqT 12:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems like there is a need for some people to do some copyedditing on the article. These been a lot of suggestions on fixes to the article needed to get it to FA status but no one is acting on them. Volunteers welcome! --Salix alba (talk) 07:28, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace]]

message: This move idea has come up again. Please discuss. (I made the point that software limitations mean that the actual move, if this passes, will be to Π.) Septentrionalis 01:59, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Talk:Pi#Move Pi to π, the official discussion!]]

message: :I copied this message from Portal talk:Mathematics. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I came here to post a message on Madhava, and saw this... Actually, I remember reading somewhere that several conferences have been convened worldwide to discuss the possible transmission. But none of them, AFAIK, have been able to come to a conclusion. However, the theory has never been discounted, because the people who back it, have a very strong point. IMO, (and this is not because I'm from Kerala), this should be mentioned as a theory that is prevalent. All my attempts at introducing it in some articles failed, (primarily because I happen to be from Kerala). It certainly would be nice if someone would be willing to take initiative in this regard (after a discussion, of course).-- thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK14:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: An RFC will be nice. However, I have a lot of difficulty finding academic papers that discuss and critique this issue (can't find any record of conferences either?), I think because this theory is so new. Hence, it will be difficult to satisfy verifiability in a lot of the claims, at least untill a few more historians come up with some peer-reviewed papers. Science and math issues require very reputable sources. Borisblue 04:51, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Kerala school?

message: User:CyberSkull moved T1 space to T₁ space, that's on the heels of a move of Mu operator to Μ operator. I believe that these are cheap Unicode tricks and not a solution to the fact that Wikipedia can't represent faithfully some mathematical notation. 
T1 space should ideally be "T1 space". Since that's impossible, I think T1 space is a better name than the T₁ space gimmick. Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless Unicode tricks can solve all our problems along these lines, I would agree that we would be better sticking with things like T1 space. I think it would be better to be consistent and avoid gimmicks - and hope that some future version of the software will give a more sensible solution. Madmath789 21:32, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My thanks to Oleg for fixing Mu operator and Mu-recursive function which had been moved inappropriately by User:CyberSkull. I agree that titles of articles and categories should not contain characters other than printable ascii characters. It is hard enough dealing with unusual characters in the text of an article. Having such characters in a title is much worse. One might look in the wrong place in the category listing (as I did for the two I mentioned above). Or one might fail to find them with a search or even be able to enter the correct title into the search box. Or the title might not display correctly depending on one's fonts. JRSpriggs 08:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unicode article names 

message: I've extensively rewritten this twice in the past week to incorporate latest news and clean up "edit creep" (well intentioned edits by inexperience writers--- or thoughtless ones--- which disrupt the flow of ideas, exhibit poor diction, and generally tend to eventually render an article unreadable.)  There has been some apparent trolling by editors who want to discuss the Israeli-Palestine conflict, so watch out.  Sheesh! ---CH 23:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Grigori Perelman]]

message: Hello! This article is about Madhava, a mathematician who lived during the middle ages. Despite being one of the greatest mathematicians (he is, in fact considered as the founder of mathematical analysis), most of his work has been discredited. The talk page of the article has a large number of unanswered questions. It would be nice if someone well versed in mathematics take a look at them. I am not submitting the article for collaboration, because it fails the nomination criteria. However, it would be wonderful if people would come forward to cleanup all the confusion and chaos on this article. Thanks! -- thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK14:34, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Madhava of Sangamagrama]] 

message: * 
The 'bot hasn't picked this one up, it appears. Uncle G 11:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles listed at Articles for deletion 

message: OK, here's a poser for you all, and I'm sure you won't want to eat or sleep until it's settled. If you start a sentence with the phrase von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory, should the "v" be capitalized?  I say yes, because you would capitalize it if you start a sentence with "von Neumann", and therefore the article does not need the  template. Arthur thinks otherwise. Please focus your full intellectual powers on this question, as I know you wouldn't want to make a mistake here. --Trovatore 16:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To up the ante, I don't see anyone crying havoc over Von Neumann architecture, Von Neumann probe, Von Neumann algebra, Von Neumann conjecture, or Von Neumann regular ring. And I've always thought that template was silly anyway. Melchoir 16:55, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To add to the confusion, the "abbreviation" vNBG (at least, as used in my parents' work on logic and set theory) clearly cannot be uppercased at the beginning of a sentence.  I'm now uncertain whether the entire expression, if spelled out, should be lowercased at the beginning of a sentence.  I don't have time to research it for another few days, although I made the assertion in the appropriate article.  — Arthur Rubin |  (talk) 17:32, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Response to Melchior's comment.  It appears that, about 48 hours ago, someone went through and removed the lowercase template from all those pages.  That person agrees with Trovatore that von Neumann is capitalized at the beginning of a sentence; I do not know whether this is correct, but it is surely a matter of editorial style, not grammar.  In some style guides it depends on the original language (Dutch, German, etc) that the von comes from.  The style I am used to would never capitalize von Neumann, even at the beginning of a sentence, and so I think the lowercase template is appropriate.   Wikipedia is free to have its own style; my guess is that it is already documented somewhere, although a quick glance at WP:NAME didn't show anything. CMummert 17:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah; I looked at the talk pages of those articles, but not their edit histories. I am not familiar with the usual treatment of "von Neumann" at the beginning of a sentence, so I'll back out of that particular issue. Melchoir 20:03, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

text: (responding to Melchor -- edit conflict) Well, I don't think it's silly on the articles where it really belongs, such as e (mathematical constant). We don't want our students deciding that it's sometimes OK to write it E, say if it's the first letter in an equation. And I'm fine with it, also, at eBay or bell hooks, though I don't think it's as important in those cases. But it should really be expunged from all the articles that start with "de" or "von" or "bin" or "ter"; those article titles are, in my view, correctly uppercased. Anyway, this is getting a little non-mathematical; if you want to get in on the whole earthshaking discussion, please see template talk:lowercase#Inappropriate use of this template (even that discussion should maybe go better at the MoS discussion page). --Trovatore 17:42, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a conflating issue with e, though: in good writing one shouldn't be starting a sentence with it at all. Anyway, while it's a worthwhile goal to avoid misleading readers, usually the first, bolded usage of an article's title is where its correct usage is displayed-- and presumably, where the form will have a greater impact on the reader. In fact, if there's a conflict between the displayed title and the first usage, that alone draws the reader's attention, and that the actual usage is the one to imitate seems implicit. We don't have to beat the reader over the head with it. Maybe I should visit that talk page... Melchoir 20:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

text: (replying to the original question) I would capitalize "von Neumann" if it appears at the start of a sentence. That's at least the rule in German, Dutch and French, and it seems strange that English would deviate from it (though of course spelling is not always logical). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: John von Neumann was so well known that he was often simply called "John von". So clearly the solution is to go thru all articles whose names begin with "von Neumann" or "Von Neumann" and replace those with "John von". Since this should clearly be capitalized, the ambiguity would be avoided. ;-) JRSpriggs 08:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A momentous question

message: I know I'm not a regular to this WP, but I'd like to throw out a suggestion: If the table on Portal:Mathematics/MathematicsTopics could be broken up into templates (as well as one large template of all of them), the templates could be placed on the respective articles to the great improvement of mathematics articles. 24.126.199.129 20:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The majority of folks here despise the use of navigation templates, and delete them summarily. For good reason. linas 22:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

text: There are long discussions that took place multiple times in the archives. Mostly, the problems were that the navboxes tended to get very large, chew up a lot of screen real-estate, and contain rather bizarre groupings of topics -- typically, obscure topics lumped in with major fields of study, thus giving undue weight to the obscure topic while effectively hiding the wealth of the major areas. Frequently, the navboxes would be skewed towards a college freshman's view of the world -- 23 ways of solving a differential equation and nothing else matters. If an article is well-written and properly linked, you don't need nav-boxes; you need an attention span that is longer than 15 seconds, which is something most of the editors here posses, but most proponents of nav boxes do not. Basically, you ain't gonna learn no math by surfing, and there's not point in encouraging surfing. linas 04:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I am new to this discussion. I actually came here to propose such an idea! lol... I tend to like how the German wiki does it. For example, look at :de:Gruppentheorie, "Group theory" (you may not speak German, but you can probably guess what most of the terms in the nav box mean.) It has three boxes, designating what field of math we are in, what is more general than a group, and what is more specific. It makes browsing around more enjoyable. Even if we dont have a sidebox, a box at the bottom of the articles could be nice. Am I redundant to some earlier conversation? - grubber 02:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I tentively support an idea like :de:Gruppentheorie. Personally I find the mathematics articles hard to navigate, and we do get ocasional comments from our readers who get lost engaging in a definition chase. Inline links present the reader with an unstructured web, whease a suitable nav box scheme would provide a more structured tree navigation scheme. Further the inline links can make navigation harder, you need to scan the text to find the appropriate links, these links may not always appear in standard places like the lead and see also sections making navigation even harder. A well thought through nav box system could make it easier for readers to find their way around the vast number of mathematics articles. --Salix alba (talk) 08:15, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Navigational templates

message: Also: what is the consensus in WP Mathematics on infoboxes? Michael Kinyon 00:45, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Dunno. Seem pretty enough in those places where they make sense. linas 04:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Infoboxes

message: I created Template:MSC for use on category pages, for those who are into classifying things. I also did a brutal and summary redirect of Mathematics Subject Classification; specialists are encourages to write a blurb on those topics that don't have a blurb. 
Speaking of templates, I'd like to remind everyone again about Template:Springer for links to articles in the Springer-Verlag online encyclopaedia of mathematics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Linas (talk • contribs) 
:I undid the redirect as it doesn't make sense.  The page on the AMS' Mathematics Subject Classification shouldn't redirect to a page that attempts to list and describe areas of mathematics (using the MSC as a "starting point").  The MSC is an interesting and encyclopedic subject in itself; its article should not only explain the classification scheme, but its differences (from the 2000 and 1991 versions), how it was created, who uses it, etc.  --C S (Talk) 23:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, well, its just was a nasty and brutal little article that threatens to try to duplicate the conetent of areas of mathematics, and I saw no point in encouraging duplication. linas 04:20, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Announce: Mathematics subject classification template 

message: I'm going to ask here for help from native speakers (German particularly needed) in translation my Candidate statement for the Board Elections starting next week.
Putting together two comments above (User:KSmrq on the need for mathematical software support, and my own on the credibility the mathematics coverage disproportionately brings), having a mathematician on the Board might seem a positive step, to some here anyway. 
Charles Matthews 14:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please place a notice here to assist those (like me) who would like to participate in the voting when it begins. I expect Wikipedia mathematicians will be especially interested in learning about a candidate who is a known mathematics editor. --KSmrqT 20:33, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A little bit of politics

message: Soap bubble 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 17:21, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Soap bubble]]