Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numbers/Archive 2

message: It looks to me like Wikipedia may have discovered an intersting mathematical property: centered hexagonal numbers that are prime are Cuban primes. If Wikipedia has indeed discovered this, it will be one fact giving tremendous validation to doing articles on individual numbers. Numerao 22:45, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fascinating, I too noticed it. But I have a feeling this has already been discovered. It's too difficult these days to make mathematical discoveries without the aid of advanced mathematics, such as calculus. But even if this was a Wikipedia-enabled discovery, I doubt it would silence the fanatic deletionists. They would scream "Wikipedia is not research!" PrimeFan 20:32, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the explanation for this is fairly simple.  The cuban primes are primes of the form (x3-y3)/(x-y).  When x = n+1 and y=n, then this is ((n+1)3-n3)/((n+1)-n), which simplifies to 3n2+3n+1.  And that's exactly the general form of a centered hexagonal number.  So it's bound to be already noticed, if not well-known.  4pq1injbok 16:08, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course! Thank you very much for that explanation, 4pq1injbok. Perhaps we should mention this in the respective articles. PrimeFan 22:08, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a few words to this effect to each. 4pq1injbok 04:50, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible Wikipedia discovery 

message: I noticed that User:Glenn has been adding interwiki links to articles on numbers in the Nahuatl language Wikipedia; the one on 12 is located at Mahtlahtlinome. If anyone here knows someone who likes number theory and speaks Nahuatl, please let them know about the Nahuatl Wikipedia. PrimeFan 21:35, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any number fans out there who speak Nahuatl? 

message: I urge everyone to put style = "margin-left: 0.5em;" in the table header. This will prevent the paragraph text to run all the way into the table border which otherwise will happen on certain browsers if the user has opted for justified paragraphs. Abigail 00:02, May 16, 2004 (UTC)
:I see you have put that style specification in the Docuan tables for 145 and 147. I'm using Internet Explorer and I have never edited my Wikipedia Preferences, and I notice no difference in the number articles with and without that specification. But if this is a problem for a lot of users, then we should cooperate on gradually adding that style specification to all number articles. PrimeFan 18:56, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table style 

message: XJam and I at the Slovene Wikipedia are wondering if there is an order for the mathematical properties of a number. For instance, I notice that PrimeFan tends to put heteromecic number ahead of Harshad number. Anton Mravcek 22:21, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Here at the English Wikipedia we are still working on that. Generally, we want to keep related properties of a number together (such as perfect number and harmonic divisor), and we want to list base-independent properties first and base-dependent properties last. Of course, these two guidelines need to be prioritized sometimes. For example, if a number is a Mersenne prime and a palindromic prime, we might want to mention those two things together, before mentioning that the number is a centered hexagonal number. And some numbers might be so famous for one trait that it bears mentioning first, before anything else. PrimeFan 22:43, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think their gonna be many numbers past the first ten with so many mathematical properties that we need to worry about order. I say just try to determine which one is most important and work your way down to the least important (usually, the base-dependent ones). Numerao 18:27, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order for mathematical properties? 

message: I propose the following:
:Links like Tridecaheptagonal number are to deprecated. They lead people to expect an article just on tridecaheptagonal number, for example, when they only lead to an article on polygonal numbers in general. Instead, the link should be made like this: k-gonal number.
Anton Mravcek 20:52, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your proposal, misleading links to Polygonal number should be deprecated. I also agree with the replacing format. I'm going to see if I can change all the misleading links today. PrimeFan 20:34, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: ''n''-gonal numbers

message: Would it be more convenient to simply redirect negative numbers to their absolute value?  --Eequor 06:08, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what the usefulness of such redirects would be. But perhaps I'm not so qualified to comment on this since my interests are focused more on positive integers. PrimeFan 21:41, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: At the moment only -1 and -40 would be redirected.  Mainly, using redirects would allow all the properties for a given number (regardless of sign) to be on the same page.  --Eequor 23:04, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Negative one is an important, axiomatic number, clearly distinct from positive one, and definitely deserving of its own article. So I reverted your redirection. -40 is also distinct from +40, but I don't feel strongly enough about it to revert your redirect. PrimeFan 15:53, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: (Aha, I've found this discussion!)  I had said a thing or two on Talk:-40 (number) but apparently these went unnoticed; and just as I was about to boldly go and redirect it, Eequor got to it first.  I certainly agree that -1 deserves its own article, but the case for -40 is marginal, and I favor redirecting it.  4pq1injbok 19:16, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Negative numbers 

message: Cardinal     	120  one hundred [and] twenty
Ordinal      	120th  one hundred [and] twentieth
Factorization	2^3 \cdot 3 \cdot 5
Divisors     	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 24, 30, 40, 60
Roman numeral	CXX
Prefixes     	hecatontakaiicosa- (Greek)
Binary       	1111000
Octal        	170
Duodecimal   	A0
Hexadecimal  	78
At right is the infobox currently found in 120.  Does this look about right?  --Eequor 03:47, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: 120

message: Any corrections to the rows to the tables on the right of some of the number articles that mention 2 prefixes, one from Greek and one from Latin, for the numbers?? 66.245.112.43 21:48, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it was User:Eequor who added all those. They look right to me, but it would be nice if a couple of different people scrutinized those. PrimeFan 20:42, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefix rows for the tables 

message: Should every integer be categorized directly into :Category:Integers?  For example, 2 (number) is categorized into :Category:Prime numbers and many others which are subcats of C:Integers.  Should all of these numbers be "double-categorized" as integers, or are the specific subcats enough?  --Whosyourjudas (talk) 21:22, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a very good question. Before answering it, though, I'm going to look at some other WikiProjects, see how they handle it. For example, for WikiProject Chemical Elements, would they categorize lanthanides directly into Chemical Elements, or into subcategory Lanthanides? I suggest other members of this project also look at other "double-categorization" possibilities that they can think of and report back here what they've seen and what they think would work best for this project. PrimeFan 21:30, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Good suggestion.  I checked WikiProject Countries - C:Poland is a subcat of C:Countries, and Poland is in both cats. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 21:53, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should also ask a MediaWiki programmer for input in this issue. Does category nesting and duplication (like in your Poland example) cause any real or potential difficulties for the MediaWiki software? Robert Happelberg 19:53, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: imho, we don't need so many categories. c:Integers is probly enough for this project. If like i'm reading the article on the number 1729, the main text already says its a Zeisel number, a Giuga number, and a Harshad number. If i want to know what other numbers are also Zeisel numbers, i can click the Zeisel number link, and it will tell me not just what other numbers are also zeisel numbers, it will also tell me just what the heck a Zeisel number. Let me see a category do that. Numerao 13:58, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorization question 

message: A anon user has been making some odd changes(for example, Number 2 changes) to a lot of number aticles recently; would someone look this over and decide what should left and what reverted?  Also, it would probably be good to try to contact eim if possible. JesseW 11:03, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been looking at the changes he/she made to the article on the number 3. Most of the letter combinations, (i.e., 3a, 3b,3c, etc.) are red, and the few that are blue are invariably redirects. It makes me wonder if this is the work of a deletionist trying to make a point. So I hesitate to revert anything in this case. Anton Mravcek 19:06, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just 0 to 9, and it's because 0-9 are frequently the start of two character things, which don't seem to have too many occurances on WikiPedia at the moment, but it could in the future. It also matches it up against the latin alphabet (or English alphabet), as 0-9 are not just numbers. 132.205.95.65 19:16, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: What are some examples of "two character things"?  And how does it (the changes, or something else?) match up with the latin alphabet?  I don't understand.  Would you explain further? JesseW 01:16, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The latin alphabet letters has two letter combinations, and sometimes, letter-digit combinations at the end of each page. Even though many of the two letter combinations are redlinked, they've still been there for quite a while. The #D or #d combination meaning the n-th dimension is frequently encountered. 3M is a famous company from Minnesota. 3G is a common shorthand to refer to the next-gen cellphone tech. #x is commonly found to mean various things as a multiple of, like AGP 8x, also found just as 8x. 2L is a famous sound company. Several of these are also part of biochemical terminology for proteins and such. Ofcourse not everything has a wikipedia entry yet. They just illustrate that 0-9 are not just numbers, but symbols/characters of the English language commonly used in the wide world. 132.205.64.202 07:26, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, that makes sense to me now.  Like F#See_also, right? Great, carry on. ;-) JesseW 14:35, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Special:Contributions/32.205.95.61]] 

message: The article 100% is about a game show.  Shouldn't there be some sort of disambiguation notice on this, about the value's numerical significance (i.e. it is equal to 1).  Maybe dab to 1 (number)?  I'm not asure if there's a page that covers the idea of percentage values. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 21:53, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[100%]] 

message: In response to the creation of the article 6000000 (number), I have drafted guidelines for numbers in statistics in the project page. Project members, please read them and amend them if necessary. PrimeFan 22:18, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  RFC: Numbers in Statistics 

message: I found the article 432 (number) via the addictive "Random page" button.  I could be wrong, but it seems that many of the facts listed there don't actually pertain to the number 432.  There are references to 43200, and LOTS of stuff about 108.  Maybe one of the people involved in this project could take a look at it.  Joyous 18:41, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
:Thanks for noticing that.  The article was created on December 30 in an orgy of mostly-anonymous edits.  I've taken out all the false info, the stuff about 108, and the dubious stuff about human heartbeats and breaths.  There's basically nothing left!  If the project didn't specifically state that every number up to 1024 should have a page, I might nominate it for deletion.  Dbenbenn 02:03, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I wrote "continuous -1 to 1024" as a proposal. Now I think "continuous -1 to 256" might be a more reasonable goal. Even if this new specification is accepted by all the project members, I hesitate to refer 432 to VfD because I have the suspicion that the anonymous user is a deletionist trying to make the point that there shouldn't be articles on any number whatsoever. PrimeFan 21:33, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[432 (number)]] 

message: An anon (Special:Contributions/132.205.95.61) added a "see also" section to 1 through 9 that look like this:
:Digit-letter combinations starting with 8:
:*8a 8b 8c 8d 8e 8f 8g 8h 8i 8j 8k 8l 8m 8n 8o 8p 8q 8r 8s 8t 8u 8v 8w 8x 8y 8z
:*8A 8B 8C 8D 8E 8F 8G 8H 8I 8J 8K 8L 8M 8N 8O 8P 8Q 8R 8S 8T 8U 8V 8W 8X 8Y 8Z
I don't see the point, so I've removed them.  The only non-red links were
0d, 0s, 0x, 0G, 1d, 1G, 1P, 2d, 2D, 2G, 2P, 2R, 3d, 3g, 3i, 3B, 3C, 3D, 3G, 3M, 3T, 4d, 4h, 4D, 4G, 4H, 4S, 4X, 5K, 5M, 7z, 8X, and 9P.
Dbenbenn 02:41, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "See also" section for digits