Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2006/Jan-Feb

message: A newbie, Itzchinoboi, rewrote Simple harmonic motion. The new article is more elementary, which is good. To me both the original version looks good, and the rewritten version looks good, although the latter is full of newbie mistakes. See the diff. Anybody knowledgeble willing to spend some time understanding the changes and see how to deal with all this matter? Note that a plain revert is not an option, it seems that the user spent half a day on that article. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help with [[Simple harmonic motion]] 

message: This newly created page is an abomination.  Please help. Michael Hardy 02:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had a go. Dysprosia 04:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nice one, D.  This seems to be rather an uphill battle.  It would be good to get the thoughts of others regarding the article introduction - see this bit of the talk page. Thanks!  — merge 04:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Scalar (mathematics)]]

message: We may be in for more of the traditional troubles at Tensor. :Category:Tensors now has 70 articles. I really think the main tensor article should reflect that (at least - some of the more algebraic pages are in :Category:Multilinear algebra or elsewhere). 
There is a sub-issue, rank of a tensor, which might be tractable on the basis of some sourced research.
Charles Matthews 17:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tensor wars

message: * 
Uncle G 01:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Articles listed at Articles for deletion

message: I hope nobody is too opposed to the requets for nominations at the top of the page. I think we need it if we're going to get MCoW up and running again. Meekohi 20:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind, apparently the big man minds. ;) Meekohi 20:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Uhh, I've never really seen Oleg, but I would bet he's not really that big. Nevertheless as Fropuff suggested below it will get more attention here anyway. Paul August ☎ 03:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  What units do you want it in, feet, meters, edits per second? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:59, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

text: It's alright, many people watch the discussion on this page. For those of you who don't know User:Meekohi is trying to get the Mathematics Collaboration of the Week going again (it has been dead for about four months now). If you are interested in participating please list nominations on that page. -- Fropuff 20:42, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps that page should scale back to a less ambitious "Math Collaboration of the Month". Paul August ☎ 17:58, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, is it flogging a dead horse? The discussions have always seemed to show up the way people here have rather disparate interests, within mathematics. We could have Algebra COTM, Geometry COTM etc., running in parallel.Charles Matthews 18:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Honestly I feel it should be the Fortnightly collaboration since that is about how long it takes to get an article up to par, but it wouldn't fit in with all the other Weekly Collaborations we have in other subjects. Meekohi 15:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Math Collaboration of the Week 

message: I've been doing some work on the Mathematics Portal recently. It has been in fairly poor shape for most of the last year as very few people have bothered to maintain it. If you have any suggestions for improvement please mention them on Portal talk:Mathematics. I do need suggestions for future featured content. You can list these at Portal:Mathematics/Suggestions. Thanks. -- Fropuff 17:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the new portal looks great. Paul August ☎ 17:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Mathematics Portal

message: If someone who remains div, grad, curl better than me would have a look at the van Hove singularity article I've just written, I'd be pleased.   I can't recall the name of the series expansion \mathrm{f(x) = f(0) + f'(0)x + 1/2f(0)x^2 + \ldots}.    Probably there's a math article on this expansion that I could point to.   Also, I have a feeling that the change of variable I'm doing where I go from a volume integral over k to a surface integral over E is the result of one of those fundamental theorems, (Gauss? Stokes? Green?) but I'm not sure which one.    Perhaps in addition I have made an egregious notational faux pas.    Thanks for any suggestions you have. Alison Chaiken 18:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The series expansion you mentioned is the Taylor series. Unfortunately I don't remember multivariable calculus well enough to offer any additional help. --Meni Rosenfeld 19:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The change of variable may have a more specific name, but "generalized Stokes theorem" would suffice. --KSmrqT 20:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, looks to me like this is about pushing forward a measure/density, and the only difficulty indeed would be at a critical point (mathematics). Not that that page is a great help. The thing about the square-root singularity comes out of the Morse lemma, and so is only generically true (true in practice ...)? That anyway is why you only get cases like the quadratic form cases to worry about. (Sorry Alison, this is hardly helpful, talking amongst ourselves here.) Charles Matthews 20:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Charles for your editing.    I added a link in the van Hove singularity article to critical point (mathematics) in the hope that it will improve eventually.    I'm contemplating a link to the Morse lemma or Stokes theorem articles but need to think about it more.   Alison Chaiken 03:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The above expansion is, to be more specific, the Maclaurin series (the Taylor series about zero). Same article though. Deco 06:57, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Multivariable calculus help

message: Is there a handy way, given a red link, to figure out what articles link to it? Some of the red links we have seem like they just need to be reworded to link to something more appropriate.
Meekohi 15:41, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To find all articles linking to Magnus series, for instance, follow the red link and then click on "What links here". -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ha ha, hiding from me in the toolbox all this time. Thanks! Meekohi 18:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Red links 

message: Could an admin keep an eye on this IP? I've reverted two of their edits. They obviously know a little about the material they are editing, but are still make some pretty serious false claims and mistakes. I've put the details up on the Talk page. Meekohi 16:10, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you'd better explain your concern some more. Apart from the deletion of one reference, which is not explained, this looks like a technically proficient editor. Charles Matthews 16:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For Scale-free networks he deleted the entire formal definition from the page, and for Complex networks he made claims that preferential attachment was the first generative model for power-law distribution graphs, which is false (and was stated as false in the article already). I'm not saying he's not technically proficient, but he's altering articles for the worst. Meekohi 16:35, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The more you can document these points on the Talk pages of the articles, the easier it is for others to follow the changes, and contribute to the discussion. Charles Matthews 17:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  70.22.128.220 

message: Seems that math made it as the cover image at businessweek.com. See article. Admittedly this is not a Wikipedia related post, however, I found it interesting. The article ends with "Yes, it's a magnificent time to know math.". Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That head is some kind of scary ;) Meekohi 20:22, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Math Will Rock Your World 

message: ragesoss is trying to start up a History of Science Wikiproject;  add your name here and help him get started. linas 05:50, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of Science WikiProject being formed 

message: Someone's just started proof of impossibility, which seems like it could end up being quite nice. I've created a redirect from impossibility proof, which I think is a more common term. Perhaps we should move the original? Dmharvey 02:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I chose the name. Either is fine for me. Deco 08:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[proof of impossibility]] 

message: Is there an article "List of decimal expansions of mathematical constants"?
* If so, where is it located?
* If not, does anyone think it would be a good idea to create one? Where should it be placed?
--Meni Rosenfeld 16:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you mean a list of mathematical constants sorted by magnitude, with 50 or so decimal places given, then sure, it would be a good idea. I started a Swedish such list a while back. Fredrik Johansson - talk - contribs 16:23, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: That seems like a potentially useful list, although I'm not sure if it's encyclopedic enough to be added. It would be better if rather than listing them bby magnitude (which is fairly meaningless) you catagorized them in some sensible way. Meekohi 16:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The page mathematical constant already provides such a list (for some definition of "popularity"...) Fredrik Johansson - talk - contribs 17:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Decimal expansions of constants and other tables of numbers should go to Wikisource (see ). Samohyl Jan 18:42, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of decimal expansions 

message: To quote from the start of the article, "The aim of this page is to list all areas of modern mathematics, with a brief explanation about their scope and links to other parts of this encyclopedia, set out in a systematic way." Although this has been done for some areas, others are most definately lacking. (All the Analysis, Non-physical sciences and General sections, plus about half the Algebra and Physical sciences sections). Due to the wide ranging nature of the topics in question, this needs contributions from plenty of people. Even if you are only able to expand on a bullet point or two, that would be a definate help. Tompw 11:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Areas of mathematics]] article 

message: As far as I can tell, the conventional notation for "subset" in most of mathematics and in WP is \subseteq. However, it has been argued that in probabilty theory the notation \subset is used. Which one of the symbols should be used in the article shattering, which deals with a topic in probability theory? --Meni Rosenfeld 19:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that \subset refers to a proper subset, while \subseteq does not necessarily refer to a proper subset. NatusRoma 19:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Unless the article specifically states that ⊂ may refer to nonproper subsets it seems wise to use ⊆ for the general case and ⊂ for proper subsets. I don't see why this should be any different in probability theory. -- Fropuff 20:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subset notation 

message: The Chaos theory page needs help.  There is a Wikipedia user that insists in inserting comments about biotic motion into the page.  Several contributers have tried to point out the problems with biotic motion to the contentious user, but to no avail.  What should be done about this?
The long discussion in the Chaos theory talk page has brought up a series of difficulties with the published work in bios theory: lack of mathematical definitions, one common author in all the six papers in citation indices, no reference to a century of work in dynamical systems, simple analytical arguments not made, etc. 
Despite the results being published, I find it hard to see how a topic that has failed to attract attention for seven years should be included as a major idea in the Chaos theory article.
XaosBits 03:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Chaos theory needs help

message: There is a dispute going on at function (mathematics), where substantial rewriting (with reverts) has been going on, with the two editors unable yet to agree on how the article should be rewritten. Rich Norwood is requesting other editor's views. Please help out. (I will be away for a few days but I will try to lend a hand  when I get back.) Thanks all. Paul August ☎ 15:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editors need help at [[function (mathematics)]] 

message: I nominated this for deletion. Votes (either way) welcome. :)  Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Mathie]] 

message: I am having a dispute with Patrick over at shape. Here's the relevant diff to Patrick's version. I would argue that Patrick is a bit pedantic insisting on the word "set" instead of "object" and that it makes the article less clear for the general public. Patrick's explanation is in the edit summary to that edit, stating "object is undefined; e.g., there is unclarity about color". I would like some comments, on this page, which I will later move to talk:shape. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:03, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, it should be object. To talk about shape, there's already an implicit assumption made that the set has a metric. There's also an implcit assumption that there's a space so that rotations, translations, etc. are defined. By contrast, true "sets" don't have metrics and can't be rotated or translated. So insisting on "set" is kinda goofy. linas 01:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe we should use the word "object", and add a comment like "object here is taken to mean a subset of a metric space"? This will make it more or less accurate, while maintaining readability. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 06:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shape or set? 

message: * JA: I'll be introducing some language under the heading of Relation (mathematics) to cover these cases and more, as they arise within the setting of relations in general.  Stay tomed.  Jon Awbrey 15:48, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Functions, partial, pre-, proto-, total, etc. 

message: Another question on a loosely related subject: Is there a notational convention in WP regarding positive infinity? I think it is most commonly denoted +\infty in the literature, but I've seen places in WP where it is denoted just \infty. Should the + sign be added for consistency and clarity? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:40, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As a rule the plus sign is used only if it is necessary to distinguish a positive infinity from a negative one. Also, some contexts require other ways of denoting infinities, such as ω or ℵ0. --KSmrqT 18:39, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

text: My experience is that it's referred to as +\infty only where it is necessary to distinguish it explicitly from negative infinity, such as in the limit of some real-valued functions. In some contexts such as complex numbers there are an uncountable number of different kinds of infinity. Generally I think just \infty is fine for most purposes. Deco 18:43, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't agree.  For the same reason we don't need to write +1 to distinguish it from –1, we don't need +∞ to distinguish it from –∞.  -lethe talk 00:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see any harm in using +∞, except that it seems maybe a little pedantic. It does serve a colorable purpose in distinguishing +∞, not from –∞, but from "unsigned infinity". --Trovatore 00:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

text:  I like +&infinity;, especially when writing down an integral or sum. Also helps to distinguish from unsigned or complex infinity. —Ruud 00:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

text: OK, the point that infinity can be signed or unsigned while finite numbers are not is well-taken.  I'm still not sure of the absolute necessity for adherence to this convention here.  Seems to me that it will always be clear in context which is meant.  In short, I think it's OK for you to use this convention, but I don't believe it's necessary to ask that everyone use it everywhere in the project. -lethe talk 06:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notation for positive infinity 

message: I am having a dispute with Rick Norwood regarding division by zero. The problem is that I want to write about structures where division by zero is possible, while he systematically tries to prove that defining division by zero is "wrong" and that you mustn't do it, because it leads to problems. I will appreciate your comments (either way) on the issue.
And while you're at it, I would also like to hear your opinions regarding the size of inline fractions in the article. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 06:41, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Technically, you can come up with you own theory, which defines division by zero through axioms somehow. However, I think you will have a difficulty proving consistency of your theory. (Igny 13:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We already have wheel theory, which purports to be such a theory. But such things are better structured as 'see alsos' to the main article. Charles Matthews 13:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really. There are places like birational geometry, rational map and so on, where it can better be put into context. Charles Matthews 13:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Division by zero 

message: In case some of you don't follow Wikipedia:Requests for adminship, I nominated one uf us, Lethe, for administrator, which, in my opinion, was long overdue. If you are familiar enough with Lethe's work, you can vote at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Lethe. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lethe for admin 

message: There is a big argument at talk:relation (mathematics), with Arthur Rubin and Randall Holmes on one side, and  Jon Awbrey on the other side. I did not study the matter in a lot of detail (and am not an expert in the matter), but it seems that Jon Awbrey is making things more complicated than necessary and is rather pushy at enforcing his version (judging from the edit history. Anyway, help would be very much appreciated. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:57, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mediation needed in big dispute at [[relation (mathematics)]] 

message: I've proposed some changes to the  "Major themes in mathematics" section of the mathematics article, see: Talk:Mathematics#Proposed changes to "Major themes in mathematics" section. Paul August ☎ 21:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed changes to [[mathematics]] 

message: Hi all, Base (mathematics) gets very little (if any) traffic so I'd like to ask this here.  The question is on Talk:Base (mathematics), at the bottom, about integers vs. numbers (please respond there as I'm not watching this page).  I'm not a mathematician, just an enthusiast, so this is me asking experts for (knowledge and) advice with the article (be warned, it is unreferenced and possibly inaccurate).  Thanks :-) Neonumbers 10:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question about [[base (mathematics)|bases]] 

message: The article SuperLeibniz law seems to be complete nonsense. I would have put it on AfD, but a search makes it look like a superLeibniz law might be something real (see e.g. Poisson superalgebra). However all the hits seem to be Wikipedia reflections, and Poisson superalgebra doesn't give any clue as to a definition for SuperLeibniz law. Poisson superalgebra was written by User:Phys, who hasn't been around since November. Unless someone knows what a SuperLeibniz law is supposed to be, I still think AfD is where it's headed. --Trovatore 03:30, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see a red link for the article you mention, and searching didn't turn it up either.  Did someone speedy delete it already? -lethe talk 03:41, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ooops, I've found it SuperLeibniz Law here. -lethe talk 03:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ahhh, the thing that is mentioned in Poisson superalgebra is what I know as a graded derivation or an antiderivation.  It's defined in derivation (abstract algebra).  The stuff in SuperLeibniz Law is, as you suggest, patent nonsense.  The question is whether we want to redirect or just delete.  Is that name attested anywhere? -lethe talk 03:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

text: D(ab) = (Da)b + (-1)^{|a||D|}a(Db).\,
I'll will amend these articles shortly. -- Fropuff 04:50, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Yep, that's it.  The Lie derivative, exterior derivative, and inner derivative satisfy that equation with degrees 0, 1, and –1 respectively.  I've not heard it called a superderivation before, but it sounds like a reasonable enough name. -lethe talk 05:01, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I added a section to derivation (abstract algebra).  -lethe talk 05:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Isn't a superalgebra just a Z2 graded algebra? -lethe talk 05:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Right, right.  I think I thought you made a complaint that you didn't actually make, now that I reread your complaint.  I added graded derivation to that article, when really what we wanted was superderivation, which is a special case.  And I didn't mention it the term at all..  Antiderivation is already there, which is pretty close, but not it.  As for whether it should get its own article, I'm not opposed to the idea, but I'm not going to do it.  I've got to think about dual spaces some more. -lethe talk 06:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: another problematic article

message: There are so many items in the list of paradoxes that are not paradoxes.  I commented on just a few examples on that page's discussion page.  Could we please collaborate to clean up that page and remove what does not belong? MathStatWoman 09:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No genuine paradoxes in mathematics. So we should just cut the maths? Actually it is OK by me for list of paradoxes to list things called a paradox, and then annotate/comment in individual articles as to the aptness of the name. Lists are mostly a navigational tool; 'added value' in terms of comment is good, but judge them mainly by the help they can give in fiding what you were looking for. In that sense, :Category:Paradoxes might need to be more rigorous. Charles Matthews 10:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So there are two ways of understanding the word paradox and people often talk past each other until they notice that they're using the word differently. Both of you seem to be using it to mean simply "contradiction". In my usage a paradox is an apparent contradiction. Paradoxes are much more interesting than contradictions. A contradiction just tells you that one of your assumptions is wrong, which is commonplace. A paradox tells you that something about your intuition is wrong, and that your intuitions need to be reconstructed to fit the facts. --Trovatore 15:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: W.V.O. Quine says the same thing in an essay on paradoxes.  He identifies "veridical" paradoxes, which are arguments that prove apparently absurd results that are nevertheless correct, such as the Banach-Tarski paradox, and "falsidical" paradoxes, which are apparently-correct arguments that nevertheless prove false results, such as Zeno's paradoxes.  -- Dominus 17:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm not quite so ignorant. For example Smale's paradox is really Smale's counterintuitive result? But Bertrand's paradox is really a verbal trick about 'uniform'? There is a bit of history on this, monster barring and so on. Charles Matthews 16:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't mean to imply you were ignorant. But what can it mean to say there are no genuine paradoxes in mathematics? (As I said on Talk:List of paradoxes, "genuine paradox" puts me in mind of "genuine faux pearls", a bonus offered on TV ads for those who call now.) --Trovatore 16:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

text: No contradictions in a consistent formal system. But 'paradox' actually connotes only semi-formalised reasoning. Charles Matthews 08:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Appeal to clean up the page on "list of paradoxes"

message: I'm sure this has come up before, but I'd like to ask - what thought has been given to how "technical" the first paragraph of maths articles should be. I'm of the opinion that the introduction should try only to explain what an interested non-mathematician would understand and find useful - what it is, why it's important, and what it's used for, all in non-technical terms. The detailed technical information can follow later. What do you think? --Khendon 21:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Non-technical is always a great goal.   But it may be a challenge.  It took an hour of rewrites to get the first line of the dynamical systems article.   And I am not sure how useful it is.  It is very tempting to say: a dynamical systems is a tuple [M, f, T] where M is ... There are many technical reviews available on the WWW, but I feel there is a lack of non-technical reviews.  The reader I try to keep in mind (but often loose) is the college freshman.  XaosBits 23:52, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Right. It is good for the intro to be motivational. See also the math style manual. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:55, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

text:  One should not try and "dumb down" articles too much. It is important to make sure the article explains everything following from the article (such as any further definitions, concepts, etc that need to be made), but the article should not spend time trying to teach concepts that a reader should already be familiar with. Motivational explanations and examples are a Big Plus. Dysprosia 08:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that the article as a whole should not be "dumbed down". However, I think there are two readers of maths articles - the casual reader who's heard the word "topology" and wants to know what it means, and the mathematician. I think we should cater to both --Khendon 09:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's important to cater for both sure, but we shouldn't sacrifice "encyclopediality" (to coin a phrase) to do so. Dysprosia 13:01, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article intro text

message: I am developing a fundamental doubt after spending time watching relation (mathematics) and function (mathematics).  I don't see how we can possibly have sensible articles on core concepts on whose definition everything else depends unless someone competent writes them and they are then frozen and edited (by a manager or by a limited class) after consultation only. This doesn't apply to all topics, but these two articles (for example) are about ideas about which many people have ill-informed, strongly held ideas and about which other people, perhaps not so ill-informed, have ideas based on philosophical or pedagogical ideas which deviate too far from the norm for easy accommodation. It was interesting to be able to write an article on New Foundations for people to read -- this is unlikely to attract the attention of too many people of the categories mentioned; articles about obviously technical subjects are not usually subject to this kind of problem, and seem to look pretty good. But central ideas of mathematics (especially ones about which silly statements are prevalent in low-level textbooks or in the popular literature) must require a constant painstaking watch which in the end may not be a sensible use of the time of competent people. (Jon Awbrey should not necessarily assume that I am referring to him). Maybe this does work out in the long run, but I'm certainly finding a watch on these articles to be much less productive and much more frustrating than watching technical articles in set theory... Randall Holmes 02:33, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Welcome to the real world. :) Randall, both you and Jon are rather new, and I believe that's part of the problem (I remeber my bitter fights with Linas a year ago :) Yeah, the Wikipedia model has its advantages and disadvantages, takes a while to get used to it, and yes indeed, constant watch and occasional frustrations are part of the game. Sorry I can't say something more meaningful, hopefully others will have better insights. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 06:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, well, Randall none-the-less does bring up a valid point. My response has been to ignore articles on pop topics, but this is not really a "good" answer. I don't know the answer, but direct interested parties to Wikipedia:Stable versions linas 17:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does the Wikipedia model really work for mathematics? 

message: Please see discrete Hankel transform.  The article incorporates text taken from GSL, which is GFDL'ed. However, the GSL license has "invariant front and back-cover texts" which the copy did not preserve, resulting in a copyvio dispute.  Surely WP has a GFDL sources policy? I don't understand that policy, but links to where it is explained would be handy.  linas 17:11, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GSL GFDL Copvio problem. 

message: Jitse and I have been making progress with MathML support in MediaWiki.
Try out the test wiki.
See also the announcement at the village pump, and our page on Meta.
Please direct all discussion to the talk page on Meta.
Dmharvey 01:50, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You da' man, David! Major kudos for working on this. I really hope blahtex makes it into MediaWiki someday soon. I'm happy to help out testing. -- Fropuff 02:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am looking forward to the day when math on Wikipedia will look good, when we won't worry about \, vs \! to PNGfy things, when html and TeX live in peace and harmony, blah,  blah, blah... Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oleg, given your comments on MathML in the past, I'll take that to be your way of trying to sound encouraging :-) Dmharvey 04:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I never had anything gainst BlahTeX or MathML. It is just I was (and still am) very skeptical about the pace of introduction of MathML and the timing of when we won't need to worry about PNG and HTML and all that. My skepticism is based on my past experiences with other (cool!) things. But you are doing great work, and I hope things will work better/sooner than I think. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Scepticism is good, action is better. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 22:10, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text:  You've got to admit that at least we look a bit better than PlanetMath... Dysprosia 10:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm still holding my breath for Safari to implement MathML before I get excited. -lethe talk 11:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Me too. Paul August ☎ 19:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text:  That's true. At least HTML/PNG is compatible on nearly *all* browsers. Dysprosia 11:53, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't get me wrong.  I'm looking forward to being excited about it.  I was even toying with the idea of trying to pitch in to MathML implementation in Safari.  I think one day a lot of browsers will have it. -lethe talk 12:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I didn't really mean it like that; the fact that MathML isn't supported in Safari highlights the problems a lot of people may have if we eventually switch to MathML. I tend to use Lynx or w3m a lot sometimes in browsing things, and MathML would be unreadable in those circumstances. Dysprosia 00:35, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I like this argument a lot. -lethe talk 23:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: In fact, the process that Fropuff is alluding to has already started happening (sort of). At the time I released the previous version of blahtex (August 2005), MathML development in gecko (i.e. mozilla/firefox) had been close to moribund for a few years. But as soon as they heard that wikipedia was planning MathML support, a few developers there started fixing all kinds of bugs, and indeed fixed the majority of the really nasty ones that I specifically pointed out to them. I haven't yet seen any evidence of other browsers getting their act together, but maybe with a working demo wiki now available, they'll take more notice. Dmharvey 21:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thats encouraging. Maybe wikipedia will be the killer app which makes maths on the web finally happen. Its been do-able for at least 10 years now (since the geometry center folks were developing WebEQ) but its never been a priority and never got that critical mass. I'm all for a push for MathML in MediaWiki, might be able to help with coding. There is a MathML (if possible) option in 'my preferences', don't know if it has any functionality. --Salix alba (talk) 22:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The "MathML (experimental)" option presently only produces MathML for the very simplest things like "x + y = 2". Give it a superscript and it stares back blankly at you. But that's besides the point: it is also necessary to deliver the entire document as XHTML, get the browser recognising the MIME types, and a few other things, without breaking browsers that don't understand any of that. Currently MediaWiki doesn't do these things. Dmharvey 22:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another small step towards MathML support in MediaWiki 

message: :Moved to talk:Matrix calculus'. 09:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Differentiation of functions of matrices with respect to matrix 

message: Do we have an article on functions of matrices?  I can see some specific cases like Matrix exponential but not a general discussion.  Also (and this question overlaps) what about convergence of series of matrices (such as the theorem that a pwoer series of matrices converges if it converges for all of the eigenvalues of the matrix)?  Thanks.  --Zero 03:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad to see that you volunteer to write an article on functions of matrices ;) The closest we have is holomorphic functional calculus, but that's probably too abstract. Look at matrix logarithm, somewhere near the bottom, for how it applies in concrete situations. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:21, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The power series thing is holomorphic functional calculus, but is also clear enough from Jordan normal form, I guess. Charles Matthews 14:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Functions of matrices 

message: Hey, if there are any experts reading this talk page, it would be great to see the Manifold#History section fleshed out. Thanks. –Joke 04:24, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not so bad now. Query what Weyl actually did in his book on Riemann surfaces, though. Charles Matthews 14:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, always more to say. However the story about the basic, underlying manifold idea is not the same as that of the history of differential geometry, or of Lie groups. (In a strange way, the technical development of manifolds lagged behind.) Charles Matthews 15:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of manifold 

message: Following prescribed discussion, I've created a new stub category, . Assistance in populating it would be appreciated (a lot of articles marked with  are really topology, and there are many articles marked with just  that are topology). --Trovatore 19:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New stub cat (topology)

message: In many of the pages on wikipedia, articles go over proofs and derivations of forumlae and other such things. Most of the time I don't need a proof, and in some cases the proof obscures the end formula. I think a very clean and elegant way to include proofs would be to link to a separate page that goes through a proof or derivation. This way, an article can be kept uncluttered and clean, while being complete and non-mysterious. (btw, is this the wrong place for this suggestion?). I'd like to know if anyone feels the same way I do. Fresheneesz 22:01, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We've had previous discussion on this. Basically proofs should only be here if they have some merit or interest. Charles Matthews 22:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  See Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Proofs for discussion, and the Math_style_manual#Proofs for the policy.  Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:51, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Here are a few examples like what you suggested: Proofs of Fermat's little theorem, Proofs of Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares, Proofs of quadratic reciprocity. I'm sure there are plenty of others. Dmharvey 03:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Dmharvey references the very finest proofs, those that are well-enough written to be deserving of real articles. By contrast, the dirty, ugly ones that got ripped out of articles can be found in :Category:Article proofs.  This is, I believe, what you are talking about. linas 04:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

text:  So would it be ok if I randomly snatch proofs from articles, and put them in their own page, if I think the page they're on would be more readable with just a link to the proof? Fresheneesz 21:29, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  If you think it improves readability, be bold! Dmharvey 22:27, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proofs and derivations

message: No bug fixes today, but one very nice new feature: correct vertical alignment of PNGs. This is something that PlanetMath has that I think is very cool (actually it's their underlying converter LaTeX2html that does it), but I'm using a different, somewhat experimental strategy. :-)
Try it out on the interactive demo, and also have a look at what it does with the equations from Wikipedia (which I've just updated from some more recent database dumps).
It's not enabled yet on Jitse's test wiki. It might be some time before it gets enabled, not because it's technically difficult, but for other semi-technical reasons that might be discussed another day...
Also, the blahtex manual is now online in HTML format, should make it easier to read.
Enjoy, Dmharvey 04:06, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is totally awesome. Deco 04:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  blahtex 0.4.1 released 

message: I found out that there is no real entry on Carathéodory theorem in wikipedia. The article  Carathéodory's theorem (measure theory) links back to outer measures, and you cannot find the definition of Carathéodory theorem for extension of measures on algebra. I don't know what you think, but the article is really not clear about what the theorem is, and I would consider this theorem fundamental in measure theory. Ashigabou 11:29, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you talking about Carathéodory's theorem (convex hull)? Probably renaming the article is in order. (Igny 13:51, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh, you meant absence of the Caratheodory extension theorem as defined in .(Igny 14:01, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  exactly. I know the theorem myself, but I am not that familiar with other "abstract theories", as I studied it recently in the theoritical fundations of probability; I wouldn't be able to link it to other fields. I created a stub, but I am not sure that semi-ring is the standard naming convention (subset S of the power set of X, closed under finite union, and difference can be written as a finite union of elements of S). Ashigabou 15:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  #REDIRECT Carathéodory's theorem -- linas 23:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is it Carathéodory's theorem but Cauchy theorem (as opposed to Cauchy's), which is also a dab page?  Should we standardise?  —Blotwell 01:57, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Carathéodory theorem 

message: Hello, up until a few minutes ago there were two different articles Kramers-Kronig relations and Kramers-Krönig relation. Having determined that Ralph Kronig spelled his name with o, not ö, I merged both articles to one named Kramers-Kronig relation. However, since I know nothing at all about math and physics, it would be very good if someone who actually understands the text could look at the new article and make any necessary changes. Thanks! Angr/talk 18:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Kramers-Kronig relation]] 

message: Up for deletion: Foundational status of arithmetic - an interesting if slightly unusual article on the history of arithmetic. Contains some non-standard views, but maybe it can be cleaned up? 17:42, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe. Looks like a chore, though. Could be tagged with NPOV in the meantime. It points to arithmetization of analysis, which seems equally problematic; it seems to take the astonishing view that analysis has been mapped into the arithmetic of the natural numbers. (It's just possible that it means this has been done in higher-order logic, which is arguably true.) --Trovatore 17:48, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfD: [[Foundational status of arithmetic]] 

message: I am rather unhappy with this article, both the name and the content. I would think that the best thing to do would be to have it deleted, but maybe there are ways of renaming it and rewording it to make it an acceptable mathematics encyclopedia article. Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:52, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK then, what I don't like is the name. Maybe something like method of inspection or something, or indeed part of the mathematical jargon. Don't know. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

text: The name is one thing I don't really dislike.  However, some other jargons, like arbitrary and canonical, have solved the naming problem by merging into a much larger article on the word taken in all its contexts.  There is an article inspection; should I perhaps insert the contents of by inspection there? Ryan Reich 04:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[By inspection]] 

message: Our article trigonometric function lacks much information, but is huge and difficult to expand as is. I think it would make sense to create a separate page for each function (cosine, inverse cosine ...). MathWorld has very rich pages on the individual functions, which are much more useful than Wikipedia's overview for someone with a good basic understanding of the topic. Of course, the main article should be kept as an overview. Same thoughts go for the hyperbolic functions. - Fredrik Johansson - talk - contribs 03:33, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not convinced. Sine and cosine overlap too much as it is. Septentrionalis 05:53, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I have long thought that the inverse trigonometric functions, at least, needed their own page. I started a draft at User:Fropuff/Draft 5 but I didn't get very far. I'm ambivalent as to whether we should have separate article for each function. -- Fropuff 07:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A separate page for the inverses would help. Fredrik Johansson - talk - contribs 16:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, we already have the long article on trigonometric identities. I don't think we really need a separate article on the history; it fits in quite nicely in the main article. -- Fropuff 01:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trigonometric and hyperbolic functions: create separate articles? 

message: I proposed Empty Summation Equations for deletion, using the new Wikipedia:Proposed deletion process. Since this process is only being tested, I thought it would be fair to let you know. I didn't follow the debate, but my interpretation is that Proposed Deletion is for those articles that fail the criteria for speedy deletion, but for which it is still obvious that they should be deleted. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:05, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can the /Current activity bot be modified to include this new type of activity? Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:53, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. With a bit of luck, the article will appear on Current activity tonight. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 19:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: PROD (Proposed deletion): Empty Summation Equations

message: See for yourself . Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 19:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert war at [[Real number]] 

message: I nominated Colloquium (College of Engineering, Guindy) and Ramanujan Rolling Shield for deletion, as as they appear nonnotable. Comments and votes welcome. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:07, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "The easiest proof" of (this theory) is due to Name that I never heard of.
Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

text: DYLAN is surely a problem user. Some anon wrote on his talk page a while ago that he was banned from the Japanese wikipedia for trolling. Wouldn't surprise me. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Although DYLAN is a problem, it now appears (from the comments made in the AfD) that Haruki is adequately notable, although the article surely doesn't reflect it.  Is there a  tag?  Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:13, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Believe it or not, but  has been deleted. Six times. I'm sure it has been discussed extensively, and I don't want to know how many edit wars had been going on about whether some article was a stub or a substub. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of MR LENNON'S links to ja appear to be incorrect or misleading. Then again, some of them seem to be right. We need someone who knows a bit of japanese to review them. Dmharvey 17:45, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possibly not notable articles 

message: Despite the name, this is a combinatorics / operations research article. It could probably need some sources and a new name, but it's a somewhat interesting problem. If somebody here knows this problem (known as "Glove problem" on Mathworld), please comment at the AfD. Kusma (討論) 00:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Safe sex makespan]] 

message: I've reorganized this page's archive files a bit. I've refactored for readability the older archive pages, adding  sections, ordering chronologically, merging two smaller ones, renaming some for consistency, signing, indenting etc. These changes are reflected in the changes I made to the archive-box at the beginning of the page.
I've also created a new file Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive Index (don't click on it unless you have the time to wait for it to load, It's rather large) which I've added to the top of the archive-box, which includes each of the individual archive files, in effect creating a single searchable file containing the complete history of this page. I urge each one of you to read it through carefully and in its entirety, if you have trouble falling to sleep at night. Anyway I thought such a file might be useful if you are looking for that excellent argument you made for or against some issue, that you'd like to refer to, but can't seem to find. It happens to me all the time.
Paul August ☎ 22:27, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many thanks! Each and every one of us will go carefully reading the archives to make sure you did a good job, as per your request. :) Thanks indeed, archives turn out to be more useful than one thinks at the moment of archiving. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archives 

message: I'm not sure, but I think we might be missing an article on something. Unfortunately I can't remember its name, but I can describe it. It should be related to articles like bifurcation diagram, Feigenbaum's constant, chaos theory, dynamical system etc. If you look at the bifurcation diagram, and list the periods of the stable orbits from left to right (including the "islands of stability"), you get some ordering on the positive integers, which starts out 1, 2, 4, 8, ... but then does funny things in a non-well-ordered way. The picture is confusing me a bit (especially since it looks like 6 shows up twice, which is not suppoed to happen !!!), but I'm sure this has a name, it's called "so-and-so's ordering", but I can't remember who. And I seem to remember that the same sequence crops up no matter which dynamical system you choose, kind of like feigenbaum's constant, well at least for some reasonable class of systems. Anyone know about this? Dmharvey 15:30, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ok, got it now: Sarkovskii's_theorem Dmharvey 15:34, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  can't remember the name of something 

message: Thanks to the efforts of Pfafrich on en, and of gwaihir and LutzL on de, and possibly others too, the blahtex compatibility project has been making substantial progress. Here's a table showing the number of problem equations on each wiki. The first column is the numbers before they got started, and the second column shows the counts for today's dumps. ("Today's dumps" means "today" for en, de and ja, but is still lagging by about two or three weeks for the other languages.)
       BEFORE   AFTER
 en      342     287
 de      372      68
 fr      103      92
 it       81      69
 pl       57      49
 es       37      32
 pt       35      35
 nl       34      16
 ja       28      32
 sv       10       9
 
 TOTAL  1099     689
So already almost 40% of problems have been dealt with.
(Note: some proportion of the decrease -- not sure exactly how much -- is attributable to changes in blahtex. In particular it is now more permissive about using font commands in strange ways like \mathcal{a}, so these aren't reported in the second column.)
An updated list of errors is available at http://blahtex.org/errors-20060220.html.
I encourage anyone who feels like helping us to jump in! Dmharvey 23:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I should add that the samples on http://blahtex.org/ have not been updated with the new dumps, and they won't be updated for a little while yet. Dmharvey 23:08, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If people are interested in helping on en-wiki I've created a set of pages detailing some of the imcompatabilities User:Pfafrich/Blahtex en.wikipedia fixup, and listing their status. So far all the errors are very minor using % rather than \%. People are welcome to fix bugs listed there, about 100 articles. --Salix alba (talk) 16:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  blahtex compatibility update 

message: OK, it seems we indeed have a problem user, the same DYLAN LENNON, recently reincarnated as WAREL. See the last 100 entries in the history of real number.  He was also inserting things at Proof that 0.999... equals 1 and other places. Seems to know math, but has unreliable edits, and is very perseverent. I would like to ask some of you to put real number on your watchlist. So far, it was mostly Jitse and me (with Zundark and an anon) who tried to keep this user at bay. Don't quite know what to do about this. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Applying WP:3RR should at least alleviate the problem; I see it's been tried. Septentrionalis 05:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Real, again 

message: Hi everyone. This is probably not the best place for this request, but seeing that no-one has replied to a question I have posted in the reference desk, I was wondering if anyone here would be so kind as to help me with a problem that has been troubling me for eons, thus earning my undying gratitude. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A question about differential equations 

message: This, according to the author of the page Avrill, is a bit of original research, and Arthur Rubin and Trovatore agree, see here and here. So I prodded the article. After which Avril blanked the page (thereby removing the "prod" tag), meaning it is technically no longer a valid candidate for an uncontested deletion. However, I'm inclined to interpret Avril's blanking of the page as a request for deletion, but since I was the one who added the "prod" tag, I don't think I should be the one to delete it. Would some other admin please take a look and delete it if you think it is appropriate? Thanks. Paul August ☎ 23:56, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're being overly process minded.  Blanking a page is a nonadmin way of marking a page for deletion, as is recognised in the speedy deletion policy.  It's obviously the right thing to do, so just go ahead and do it. --- Charles Stewart(talk) 16:11, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[combined set theory]] 

message: is now available at http://blahtex.org/. The main changes are: now supports \color, support for \not is cleaned up a lot, and a few other bugfixes. The new version hasn't been installed on the test wiki yet (http://wiki.blahtex.org/) because Jitse is out of town for a while.
Also, the sample pages have been updated with the more recent dumps. I'm throwing in russian, chinese and hebrew now (ru, zh, he) as well. 
==== Compatibility project update ====
More progress has been made with blahtex compatibility on Wikipedia. We are now down to 463 errors across 13 wikipedias. I know there's a few people working on this in the background; I'm starting to tackle some of the smaller wikis myself. It's a bit frustrating that the wikipedia dumps are updated so infrequently (most of them are almost a month old now), making it hard to locate equations that haven't already been dealt with. Therefore, for the convenience of people working on this project, I've written a script that pulls down (via CURL and Special:Export) a live copy of all equations which were broken in the most recent dump, runs blahtex on them, and produces an up-to-date list of errors. So this list will miss any brand new errors that showed up since the last wikipedia dumps, but I expect the number of these to be miniscule. I will try to run this script every few days, and the results will be kept at http://blahtex.org/errors.html, so we can monitor progress. Many thanks to those who have been helping with this. Dmharvey 22:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 341 and counting.... and it looks like both de.wikipedia and fr.wikipedia are finished. Good stuff folks! Dmharvey 13:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  blahtex 0.4.3 

message: More progress has been made with blahtex compatibility on Wikipedia. We are now down to 463 errors across 13 wikipedias. I know there's a few people working on this in the background; I'm starting to tackle some of the smaller wikis myself. It's a bit frustrating that the wikipedia dumps are updated so infrequently (most of them are almost a month old now), making it hard to locate equations that haven't already been dealt with. Therefore, for the convenience of people working on this project, I've written a script that pulls down (via CURL and Special:Export) a live copy of all equations which were broken in the most recent dump, runs blahtex on them, and produces an up-to-date list of errors. So this list will miss any brand new errors that showed up since the last wikipedia dumps, but I expect the number of these to be miniscule. I will try to run this script every few days, and the results will be kept at http://blahtex.org/errors.html, so we can monitor progress. Many thanks to those who have been helping with this. Dmharvey 22:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 341 and counting.... and it looks like both de.wikipedia and fr.wikipedia are finished. Good stuff folks! Dmharvey 13:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compatibility project update 

message: Luck has it that we mathematicians are a close-knit bunch who do good work. :) I nominated another one of us (Lethe was promoted serveral weeks ago), for admin, namely Ruud. If you are familiar with Ruud's work, you can vote at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/R.Koot. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ruud for admin 

message: When I go to planetmath.org, I see a weird "coming soon" message and a link to a mysterious wiki.  Does anyone know what's going on with that? -lethe talk [ +] 08:01, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Worksforme. Dysprosia 08:05, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Weird.  It's still not working for me this morning. -lethe talk [ +] 14:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Works fine now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  what's happened to planetmath?