Talk:Cycle (mathematics)

message: I agree that the two should be merged.
Too much articles on permutations exist and are about exactly the same topic.— MFH:Talk 19:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

message: I've temporarily reverted the merge of this article into this cyclic permutation, since I'm unconvinced that this is a good idea. I would like to have more discussion about this. Please see the discussion here. Paul August ☎ 22:31, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I've reverted Merge 

message: There should be some kind of cross-reference to cycles in homology.  Richard Pinch (talk) 21:47, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Homology 

message: Hm, I see that I forgot to sign in making a change to this page. So I'm 194.167.52.1. Sorry about that, I hope this partially puts it straight.Marc van Leeuwen (talk) 15:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Identifying change 

message: I'm puzzled by the "unreferenced" tag.  There's something at the bottom of the page that looks to me very much like a reference. Jowa fan (talk) 01:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, it has one reference (which is quite low, the requirement being multiple non-trivial references), but no footnotes. This isn't adequate. Andrevan@ 04:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I can look up a second source next week when I'm back at the office (unless someone else fixes this first).  Since I'm still learning about the various Wikipedia policies, can you point me to something explaining the multiple references requirement?  The "one source" template points to WP:RS, which doesn't seem to address this issue.  For such a short article, on a topic that many mathematicians would describe as uncontroversial knowledge I wouldn't have expected multiple sources to be necessary. Thanks for any feedback you can offer. Jowa fan (talk) 01:13, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a look at Template:Single source, Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check/Guidelines, and a discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2010 May 12. Although a single source is not necessarily a problem, I think it's pretty clear that the referencing on this page is generally poor. I'm not going to go around slapping citation needed tags everywhere, but we can do better than one general reference and 0 inline citations. (The "multiple nontrivial" language was from general notability, which isn't really an argument I meant to make.) Andrevan@ 07:47, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the info. Those references don't paint a clear picture on this particular point, but since it's very easy to provide a second source for this material, I've now added one.  Overall I don't see the referencing here as being "generally poor": this material is common knowledge for mathematicians, easy to find by scanning the contents page of a relevant textbook, and not in any way controversial, so there's no need to footnote each invididual point.  If this needs any further attention, it should probably wait until after the merger proposal is resolved. Jowa fan (talk) 03:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference needed? 

message: I propose the article transposition (mathematics) be merged into this one. Neither article is particularly large or informative, and transpositions are the simplest case of cycles, so their definition and discussion could very well be included here. Also this would make referencing both subjects easier. Marc van Leeuwen (talk) 10:39, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Andrevan@ 16:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: I have two algebra textbooks which indicate that the execution of a product of transpositions proceeds from left to right.  If anyone knows of a textbook indicating otherwise, I would like to know what it is so I can look it up.  In any case, this article should make clear which transposition in a product, for example (a,b)(a,c) is performed first, (a,b) or (a,c), and cite the source. — Anita5192 (talk) 04:49, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order of execution of a product of transpositions 

message: Although I didn't make the proposal, I had been thinking about doing so for a while. These pages had been merged back in 2007 for a moment or two, but that merger was reverted (and the merge went the other way, cycle into cyclic permutation). The reason I have hesitated making the proposal is that the title Cycle (mathematics) is much broader than cyclic permutation. Cycles are defined in graph theory, and used in many descriptions of periodic behavior that are not related to permutations, and in several other areas. This article however is exclusively about cyclic permutations. Cycle is already a DAB page and several of the mathematical meanings are listed there, otherwise I would have proposed turning this page into a DAB page. I think that the only reasonable thing to do here is to merge Cyclic permutation into this article and then move this page to Cycle (permutation theory). Bill Cherowitzo  (talk) 03:26, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have thought to merge Cyclic permutation into Permutation. —Quondum 03:39, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

text: Permutation does rather go into applications and methods, which IMO could be split out or dropped entirely.  Cyclic permutations and their use in expressing (i.e. from which to compose) finite permutations seem to be more fundamental to the concept than much of the stuff about ordering, generating etc.  And, no offence intended, than the circular permutation concept.  However, your proposal of merging the two articles Cycle (mathematics) and Cyclic permutation into one with a more appropriate name does make sense, which could then be referred to from the Permutation article which would use the concept without elaborating fully on it. This is in keeping with the style in WP. However one arranges it, my major interest would be that at least the definitions are complete and do not sacrifice clarity to a perceived need for pedagogy. —Quondum 05:59, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the merging of Cyclic permutation and Cycle (mathematics), which both treat the same concept, into one article. The section on counting permutations by number of cycles of Cycles and fixed points could be integrated into this article as well. An alternate title to Cycle (permutation theory) would be Permutation cycle (see MathWorld). Best wishes, --Quartl (talk) 05:27, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  new merger proposal