Talk:Alex Smith (The Simplest Universal Computer Proof contest winner)

message: I've written a synopis of the Wolfram (2,3) controversy, as I understand it, in user space  here. Comments and rebuttals are welcome. Pete St.John 17:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: or, alternatively, we can just have an edit-war (sigh). It seems both the pro-Wolfram and anti-Wolfram camps are averse to diplomacy. But really I think this can settle down to mere scholarship in the coming days. Pete St.John  —Preceding comment was added at 15:09, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I'll try and maintain ongoing attempts at acceptable wording for use in articles, here in user space. Pete St.John 16:32, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like one of the citation links you made is broken. (See footnotes.) I don't know how to fix that style of citation. --Pleasantville 17:45, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  thanks, yes, besides mispelling "controversy" alot, I've bungled that citation, I was just fixing it at the (2,3) page. I'll go fix it everywhere. Pete St.John 18:12, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

text: That's Ok, I belive you are being patient too. I tried to cool down over the weekend; the double whammy of controversies in 'two math topics at once, flabbergasted me (Erdos Numbers). Right now I'm going with a plan along the lines of flagging the articles as "Active Discussion", and punting my effort to actualy synopsize the debate, which effort seems appreciated by no one. Pete St.John 18:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversy 

message: Requiemdirge, I'm sorry to revert your last edit. But:
* 1. There really is controversy, if only proven by the edit war. So mentioning two sides seems pertinent.
* 2. It's a newsy topical item (because of Slashdot) and things are changing rapidly (witness ourselves) so warning the reader is appropriate and has precedent in wiki.
* 3. You admit in your own version that Smith's paper relaxes, or generalizes, the defintion of "universal". That seems to be the main issue, not the technical correctness of the paper. But as a consequence, calling the press release "wrong" (as I did) for not stating the revised defintion of the term is defensible.
* So I think my previous version somewhat better reflects the current state of the controversy than your replacement. I think in all fairness it's reasonable, in contested matters, to use the discussion page (as you have elsewhere, thanks). It's difficult to keep up in this case.
* I'm seeking confirmation that Pratt's own opinion is not that Smith's paper is incorrect, but that redefining the term "Universal" to mean "Possibly infinite inputs" would be a bad idea. If Wolfram's press release had said "Universal, with relaxed conditions to allow for certain infinite input sets" or "Universal, of Type Smith-Wolfram" then there would have been no controversy. Pete St.John 21:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's Ok, I belive you are being patient too. I tried to cool down over the weekend; the double whammy of controversies in 'two math topics at once, flabbergasted me (Erdos Numbers). Right now I'm going with a plan along the lines of flagging the articles as "Active Discussion", and punting my effort to actualy synopsize the debate, which effort seems appreciated by no one. Pete St.John 18:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  revert re: controversy