Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2003

message: Let's put it this way: I have a tenuous grasp of category theory and am completely lost when it comes to topos theory.  Now I think back to myself at age 13, just learning about things like calculus. Just as I needed a way in then, I need a way in for these other topics.  It would be useful for many articles to have a header saying (for example, for integral):
:Having difficulty understanding this article? Then you might want to learn more about algebra, functions and the theory of limits first.
Do this to enough articles, and we will have a mathematics road map for self-study. The Anome
:This is a really cool idea. It would help prevent reiteration of all the prerequisite knowledge in specialized articles, and provide a nice path towards learning difficult stuff. Something like this may even be useful for non-mathematical subjects as well -- certainly the other science articles (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.) would benefit from it, but it could even be applied to articles on history, politics, psychology, or anything else where a foundation of terminology and concepts is necessary in understanding the more complex ideas presented in specialized parts of those subjects. At the very least, some form of "Introduction to terminology" or "Glossary of notations" and the like would be helpful. -- Wapcaplet 12:26 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)
: I don't like the idea of putting the "difficulty" notice on articles, though until Wikibooks gets fully on its feet it may be useful. I don't think this idea meshes well with the encyclopedic concept of the Wikipedia. Dysprosia 05:27, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Let's put it this way …"

message: Howdy folks. I'm working on a personal project (bits of which might make it to Wikipedia eventually), and am looking for some help with TeX. Specifically, how do I get the "model satisfies" symbol (which is like \vdash but with an additional horizontal bar), and how do I get the reverse of both these two?
Thanks in advance,
Onebyone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Onebyone (talk • contribs) 21:37, October 19, 2003 (UTC)
:Hi Onebyone. You probably want \models (\dashv is the TeX thing for but it doesn't seem to work here), but I don't know the reverse of the models symbol... Dysprosia 05:51, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: "… looking for some help with TeX …"

message: Hi people.
I would like to again raise the question of using mathematical markup (namely the  tag) versus plain HTML for mathematical content. I have read what pertains to the problem and I am still not convinced of the point of view explained in the guidelines on the main page WikiProject Mathematics. Here's mostly why.
# Common ground
#* It seems we all agree that mathematical content should come in a different typeface from standard text, e.g. "Let a be a real number" rather than "Let a be a real number". It is my strong belief that it makes understanding math much easier.
#* The use of mathematical symbols is sometimes inevitable, and sometimes much shorter than plain text, e.g. \sum_{i=k}^p u_i compared to "the sum of all elements in the sequence with indices ranging between k and p". (Not to mention that the example above shows that the TeX processing is wrong: it does not treats the formula as inline.) 
#* However, I fully support the opinion that the Wikipedia should try to reach the "layman" as much as possible, and that implies favoring text to formulas (with the exception of the item above).
# Why imho the reasons against using mathematical markup fall short:
#* inline PNG looks bad because it is too big and not vertically aligned. True indeed ! it is ugly, but why stick with it ? Though I am not an expert, it seems simpler to configure ghostscript for size and centering. (Not too small for legibility purposes.)
#* mathematical markup uses unnecessary bandwidth. That seems overrated, since small png files (the ones that could be replaced by HTML text) are ... small, typically a few hundred bytes (in general much more than the text equivalent except in the example above), so one hundred of them in an entry means maybe 50Kb extra. While not negligible, this remains acceptable even for slow connections. Hence it only marginally slows download speed. However I admit that an increasing number of such files might slow down the Wiki server itself unless solutions are taken (see caching below). I'll be happy to learn more about this. Notice that steps against this overflow can be taken by choosing the HTML if possible or else PNG option, at the possible cost discussed just below. Question: shouldn't that behaviour be the default one ? 
#* mathematical markup slows down the server because it has to create the png image through the complicated tex->ps->png method, or testing whether it can be converted to HTML first. Now that convinces me much more (and more or less mirrors my experience). Since it is quite true that a lot of inline formulas can be written using HTML, I believe the conversion engine could work much faster (all right ! easier said than done ;-) . If not, see suggestion HTMLmath below. 
# The argument in favor of mathematical markup is simple but stronger. Though my remarks above plead for conversion to HTML, the main reason for using mathematical markup is to obey the same principle that is behind HTML, XML, CSS, etc: separate meaning from display. By using the <math> tag, you indicate  that the content is maths, no matter how you eventually display it (and that may depend who reads it too). You can always change the way it is displayed afterwards, depending on technology (maybe we'll have DSL in ten years :-), on your preferences, and so on. If in two years from now all browsers accept MathML, Wikipedia will obviously render math in MathML. What becomes then of all previously written articles ? If they contain expressions such as 'the real number x ', then they will have to be changed by hand, while 'the real number <math>x' will be translated into MathML automatically and easily (even for more complicated formulas). And that's only one of the uses of the idea of separating content and display. In short, the main reason for preferring mathematical markup is to preserve the future, i.e. to build something that may last.
# Solutions ? I do not know of course all the pros and contras of all this, but if you agree that mathematical markup has to be built in, but yields undesirable side effects (like slowing down the whole thing or displaying badly), here are suggestions.
#* Caching: (unless it is already done) if bandwidth remains an issue, why not cache the math pages, i.e. keep copies of rendered pages on another server which will (i) free the main server of outgoing flux (bandwidth problems) and computing time (conversion procedure). I then suggest a move towards the HTML if possible or else PNG choice for better display. If finding willing servers is a problem, why not ask math academic servers throughout the globe ? Many of them host mirrors of much heavier archives such as arXiv. 
#* One simple thing: make a difference between inline and separate formulas (TeX users will know that). A better solution for all editors would be of course an automatic recognition of whether a math formula is inline or not (not too hard is it ?). 
#* HTMLmath: a simple suggestion helping the rendering machine: add a tag (say <hmath></hmath> for instance) that caracterizes the content as mathematical but is written in plain HTML, with, whenever possible, some simple conventions: usual letters should be italicized, ^ means , etc. So that <hmath>x^2</hmath> will be displayed as the HTML x2. That idea remains compatible with a future automatic rewriting, while speeding up the procedure for the moment.
#* At the very least, if the suggestion above seems too cumbersome, let us provide a tag that describes the content as mathematical (even without anything extra). Or replacing the <it></it> tag. I propose <mi></mi> for math italic.
I hope I have not bored you too much with such a longish article. Please excuse the newcomer's stubbornness (or maybe intransigence ?). : Pascalromon 23:12, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: mathematical markup

message: I'd like to announce a new WikiProject, WikiProject Probability.  I started this last week on my user page, and was convinced to move it to a more appropriate home amongst the WikiProjects.  It is not quite a list of probability topics, but an effort to catalogue the articles on probability theory and applications, providing a guide (in the form of an annotated table of contents) for those who would like to know more about the topic. I hope such an effort would also expose any defiencies in Wikipedia's coverage of the subject.  It is not intended to propose alternate formatting for probability articles.  I'd appreciate any and all input from the participants in WikiProject Mathematics.  Perhaps WikiProject Probability should even be a sub-project of WikiProject Mathematics? --Ben Cairns 01:10, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: New WikiProject, [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Probability|WikiProject Probability]]