Talk:Ruth Lawrence

message: I feel very strongly that personal gossip about living, active people should be kept to a minimum in Wikipedia biographies.  In this case, I know Ruth Lawrence slightly and I think that her privacy should be respected.
--Greg Kuperberg 15:34, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Her PhD thesis says her middle name is Jayne, not Elke, so I've altered it.Blaise 16:10, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting. Up to about 1996 her publications are credited to "R.J. Lawrence", but her Home Page says Elke, and this article from 2000 calls her "Ruth E. Lawrence". Perhaps she changed her middle name when she married ?? Gandalf61 13:04, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Under English law, she can use any name she likes. "Jayne" is not in Hebrew.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.19.141.74 (talk) 13:26, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Middle name

message: Something's wrong here.  530 sounds about right for the number of candidates applying for maths at Oxford in any one year - if anything, it sounds a little low - but the article implies that that was the number applying for St Hugh's, which is just one out of 30 colleges that admit undergraduates.  The exam is common across all colleges, and I can quite believe that she came top out of 530, so the St Hugh's bit needs to be moved elsewhere.  Philip Trueman 14:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Quite correct, the Oxford colleges were operating a unified entrance exam in mathematics that year (I was one of the examiners as it happens) and she came top across the whole university intake.  I have modified the sentence accordingly.  Richard Pinch (talk) 19:01, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Candidates for the Oxford entrance interview exam 

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 21:12, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: There are no references cited for any of the information in the section Personal and there is no citation to support the assertion that the publications referred to are her Three most cited mathematical publications.  In accordance with WP:BLP I have removed the Personal section, especially since it refers to other living people as well.  Deltahedron (talk) 16:53, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: I have removed various statements and links to other subsequent child prodigies as irrelevant to this article.  In particular, the statement that Ruth Lawrence's age record stood until another specific person might have been relevant but the assertion was not supported by the reference cited.  Deltahedron (talk) 17:02, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Later mathematical prodigies 

message: The text states that she obtained a 'starred first'.  I was at Oxford at the time and have never heard the term before.  She did get the highest score in mathematics finals, but that is always known as the 'top first'.  She sat physics finals the following year;  she got a first in that, but did not come top (Nigel Dowrick was top).156.154.61.54 (talk) 22:55, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia goes by what reliable sources publish. The BBC source in the article says it was "a starred first in Mathematics", and a quick google shows plenty of other reliable sources to back it up. We can't use your personal knowledge, see WP:V and WP:RS. TwoTwoHello (talk) 23:37, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Starred first