Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics: Difference between revisions

Rychlik (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), no doubt an otherwise well-intentioned editor, does appear to be adding material that is unduly self-promotional. He has already been warned of a potential COI, but perhaps further action is needed? Specifically of concern are the articles Marek Rychlik, Rychlik's theorem, and Chordal problem, all of which appear to assign undue significance to the editor's own research. I thought I should post here to solicit input on the best way to handle this constellation of articles. One possibility that seems reasonable to me is to delete Marek Rychlik and Rychlik's theorem, possibly merging some content from Rychlik's theorem to Chordal problem. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:47, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Most recent contribs include homoclinic connection, which has long been needed, and now appears to be a workable start. I'd recommend letting things slide for a while, and getting him comfortable with editing WP in general, rather than scaring him off with contentiousness. I suspect that many start by editing WP pages close to their heart, before showing broadened interests. Even I resisted but eventually succumbed to the urge to mention my own thesis work in an article somewhere :-) linas (talk) 05:36, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One particular issue that strikes me is the need to establish that Rychlik's solution to the equichordal point problem is actually known as Rychlik's theorem. Almost all of the independent references currently in that article pre-date Rychlik's solution and so cannot be a source for that name. I have asked for a reliable source at Talk:Rychlik's theorem, but that request has so far gone unheeded. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:39, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

... and Ushiki's theorem, started by the same editor, has the same problem. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:16, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Situation does look manageable. Would anyone inclined to intervene please note the key distinction: "potential COI" may be a hypothesis or it may be something that can be confirmed. But WP:COI relates fundamentally only to putting the encyclopedia's interests second, rather than first. Something like the discussion of whether equichordal point problem is a better title can actually be carried out compatibly with AGF. Charles Matthews (talk) 13:26, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, and I hope I didn't seem alarmist. My chief concerns are that the autobiography is unsuitable (the subject is of borderline notability, and autobiographies are a COI as a rule) and the article about "Rychlik's theorem" (which is also a clear COI, although our standards on theorems are generally fairly relaxed). The other edits seem to be beneficial on the whole. Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:23, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am not convinced that redirecting Marek Rychlik to Rychlik's theorem was a good solution. We do have notability guidelines, and in this regard Marek Rychlik clearly fulfilled the criteria. Sure, the article was poor, but if anything I'd expected Rychlik's theorem to be renamed to equichordal point problem. Nageh (talk) 20:05, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not at all convinced that Marek Rychlik passes the notability guideline. He has one or two highly cited papers, but an otherwise fairly unremarkable career. Solving the equichordal point problem seems to be something that he himself is very excited about, but it does not seem to have generated any buzz in the wider mathematical world, so I don't think this rises to the required level of notability. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but at any rate people should not be writing articles about themselves to begin with, so as a short-term solution, a redirect seems fine. Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:37, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now on AfD. Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

AfD is fine with me. If your concern is insufficient notability, I do have to repeat the point that we have guidelines for when an academic is notable, and he clearly fulfills them. Regarding your disregard of his solution on the equichordal point problem, I want to point out this source and its introduction as a hint for notability. Anyway, I put my comments on the AfD page. Nageh (talk) 18:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I am certainly aware of the notability guidelines, and I see no evidence that he passes them. The book you cite mentions the subject, but only briefly in passing. And, at any rate, there are still the demands of WP:V, that sources must address the subject of the article in a nontrivial manner. If he truly is notable only for one thing, then WP:1E applies, and a redirect to Equichordal point problem is fully justified. Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The other problem is that equichordal point problem is now a redirect to Rychlik's theorem. As I pointed out previously, I can find only a single source on Google that refers to this problem by "Rychlik's theorem". If anything, Rychlik's theorem should be redirected to the equichordal point problem article. Nageh (talk) 12:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's just silly. The Rychlik's theorem page says that it solves the equichordal point problem, but then that link redirects to the page you're on. Meaning you don't know what the equichordal point problem is, and you don't know the motivation for Rychlik's theorem. It's a total COI for Rychlik to write articles about his own work. — Fly by Night (talk) 14:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just found a paper on ZBMATH database (Wojtkowski, M.P., Two applications of Jacobi fields to the billiard ball problem, J. Differ. Geom. 40, No.1, 155-164 (1994)) which mentions Bialy's theorem and also Rychlik's theorem in the abstract. Now, two major questions arise: 1) is the user Sławomir Biały related to Rychlik in any way, if yes, did the relationship induce this discussion? 2) Independent of the first question, is one mentioning by another polish mathematician a proof for notability? I highly doubt that. DrPhosphorus (talk) 19:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have requested a renaming of Rychlik's theorem to equichordal point problem, followed by deletion of the article name Rychlik's theorem. Discussion here. Cheers, and a happy new year! Nageh (talk) 10:32, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

is internal set theory a constructivist theory?

Please comment here. Tkuvho (talk) 15:51, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pseudolinearity and pseudolinear functions

Pseudolinear function (AfD discussion)

I've created a placeholder redirect (that can be renamed over) at pseudolinearity, which is probably where this article is best sited, with some refactoring of the definition in the introduction of course. I've also created a redirect at η-pseudolinearity. Opinions on the title are welcome. Observe too the redlink at invexity, another article that we didn't even know that we didn't have. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 23:16, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I dislike abstract nouns being used as article names since it's really just a variation on using adjectives as article names. Adjectives in mathematics, and the corresponding abstract nouns, tend to get reused and can mean very different things depending on what they're applied to, so they are usually a poor indicator of what the subject is. An example would be "normality"; would that be about normal distributions or normal spaces?--RDBury (talk) 17:48, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- You should be arguing that with all of the mathematicians that use "pseudolinearity" in the titles of their journal articles, book chapters, and whatnot. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 22:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - I don't really object in those cases, they have context built in. Wikipedia is different in that you have to assume people may come to an article dropped in by parachute, so it's helpful to put a bit of extra information in the title to help them locate where they are.--RDBury (talk) 11:26, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've recently started the article pseudoconvex function as a more appropriate subject (for essentially this same content). The article is just a few hours old, but already is the subject of an apparently non-mathematical editor with a hardline view of WP:NOT#TEXTBOOK. I'd appreciate any help with the article contents to make it more reader-friendly. Sławomir Biały (talk) 17:00, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The editor in question apparently believes that Wikipedia should not cover advanced mathematics topics. Comments at Talk:Pseudoconvex function would be appreciated. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:01, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I added some references and a short discussion of linear fractional programming in the pseudoconvex function article. SB's addition is greatly appreciated (by me, at least). Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 10:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Math related FP nomination

There is a new nomination for a math related image (File:Theorem.gif) at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Pythagorean Theorem Animation.--RDBury (talk) 13:40, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is garbage which was fortunately withdrawn from consideration. JRSpriggs (talk) 20:53, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

pi in the sky, plane, or space?

Is the circle in the plane or in space? Comment at talk:pi. Tkuvho (talk) 20:15, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mathematics Genealogy Project

In the last month, editor Edstat renewed his campaign against the Mathematics Genealogy Project: c.f., the October notice to this WP project (by David Eppstein). I removed statements in the MGP article that seemed to violate (imho) original-research (e.g. synthesis) and undue-weight prohibitions. As in his previous campaign, Edstate contributed several cases of selective & truncated quotation, imho.

As a quality-check on my edits and possibly on Edstat's editing, other editors should review the MGP article.

Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 10:43, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Math-related FA on the Main Page tomorrow

Hi, I just wanted to alert you all that the Laplace–Runge–Lenz vector will be appearing on the Main Page tomorrow, that is, on December 30th. Strictly speaking, it's more of a physics article than a math article; but it does appear on our list of WPM Featured Articles. I'll do my best to watch over it tomorrow, but I'll also be pretty busy in real life, so I'd appreciate any extra help from my friends and colleagues here. Thank you very much! :) Willow (talk) 18:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Input requested on recent breakage of Template:Su

I'd like to solicit input on the recent breakage of Template:Su in the Firefox 2.0 compatible browsers (there is a thread at Template talk:Su). I've just been told off that the ~20,000 current users of this line of browsers is not enough market share to consider fixing the template. The template is totally broken for users of this line of browsers (see the image on that discussion page for details), and a solution is very desirable. Potentially the template should be retired from use in favor of using <math> instead. Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:07, 1 January 2011 (UTC):[reply]

Does putting the whole thing (including the previous symbol) inside "nowrap" fix the problem? — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:30, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, the span actually has an embedded <br /> in it, and it breaks in Firefox 2.0 because it does not understand display:inline-block;. It used to work throuhg mozilla-specific CSS, which went deprecated in Firefox 3.0, but that caused problems for newer browsers (including Firefox 3.x), so the template was overhauled to use generic CSS. Firefox 2.0 is extinct; with making up only 0.43% of pageviews, we felt it is not worth fixing. — Edokter • Talk — 17:08, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the real question here is not "can we fix it?", but "should we fix it for 0.43% of users, if that means poorer experience for the rest?" in other words "backwards compatibility at what cost?". — SkyLined (talk) 11:59, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, it seems to be an issue of fixing it for the ~5% who use Internet Explorer 6 at the cost of breaking it for the ~0.4% who use Firefox 2. If that's accurate, I think that going with the larger number of readers is the right choice. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:26, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it depends on whether it is still a priority for Wikipedia to remain usable for people running older systems. I know that in some areas (e.g., accessibility) obviously the need to be accessible to as wide a user base as possible is a major consideration. However, perhaps in other areas (e.g., the perennial debate about unicode) it is less of an issue. So, depending on how one prioritizes the matter, there are two ways forward: either accept that an appreciable number of users are going to be unable to read some of our articles, or use something else (e.g., <math>) instead of the template. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:36, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One problem with <math> is that it offers no accessibility features and you can't copy+paste it either; you would lock users with disabilities out, who cannot address their problem, in favor of users with insecure, outdated browsers, who are a liability to the net as a whole and the main reason why we have so many botnets. IMHO the later should be banned outright, but let's not get to that discussion :D. There are probably a number of ways to solve this specific issue in the tempalte, each with different drawbacks. This is why I think we should focus on the generic question of what level of backwards compatibility should we provide and at what cost to useful features. — SkyLined (talk) 16:36, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One can tell Wikipedia to format <math> as plain text, which will be accessible to every browser and works with screen readers. Math images cannot be copied and pasted but they work for everyone who can read images, again on every browser. Also the Su template loses the semantic information that a formula is mathematics, while the <math> tags will keep working (and improve appearance) when we eventually move to a better math system like mathjax or mathml. So there are several advantages to using <math> for formulas in a mathematical context. The majority of uses of Su seem to be for chemical symbols; only about 60 math articles use the template. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:50, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Side comment: I agree that mathjax is better, but I think it is likely to be broken on a much larger number of browsers. As I recall, mathjax seems to demand the latest version of everything, and doesn't seem to work on some of the more exotic browsers like Konqueror. Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:06, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Operator

Hi, I was hoping to get some expert help. Operator (disambiguation) currently has over 100 incoming links, and we're having a tough time figuring out how to fix them. I'm suspicious that the disambig is missing a mathematics article or two. Could someone take a look at the mathematics articles in this list and give their opinion? Thanks, --JaGa^talk 19:06, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The word "operator", even when restricted to mathematics, has several meanings depending on context. Most of these meanings should be covered in Operator (mathematics) but I'm thinking that article should be merged with the main dab article; it's not in a very good state as it is. Meanwhile, the links to "operator" in math articles should be changed to link to an article with the specific meaning. I've done one or two but but it's not an easy task since it's often difficult to tell what specific meaning (if any) the author of an article had in mind.--RDBury (talk) 10:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I did exactly the opposite about a month ago. The problem was that there was no article on operators on vector spaces, and the article operator (mathematics) (then just called operator) was horrible, mainly because its main contributors were programmers (even though there was already operator (programming) at the time) and non-specialists only familiar with arithmetic operations. You can look at the discussion page to get a feeling of how inadequate they were. That's why I think there must be a separate article on operators on vector spaces if only to protect it from unintentional vandalism, maybe under different title. — Kallikanzarid^talk 11:55, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Part of the problem here is confusion between what programmers call "operators" and mathematicians call "operations" (e.g. the arithmetic operations "+", "-" etc.). So that some of the uses of the term "operator" which now link to operator, actually are referring to, and ought to link instead to, operation (mathematics). Paul August ☎ 12:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with you here, maybe we need to sketch a network of articles that will satisfy the community and lessen the confusion. — Kallikanzarid^talk 13:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of Movable singularity

The article Movable singularity has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for references found several references for the phrase, but multiple phrasing differences between sources and this article make impossible to Validate the accuracy of the article content

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 17:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 112: / Line 112: @@
 :::Part of the problem here is confusion between  what programmers call "operators" and mathematicians call "operations" (e.g. the arithmetic operations "+", "-" etc.). So that some of the uses of the term "operator" which now link to [[operator]], actually are referring to, and ought to link instead to, [[operation (mathematics)]]. [[User:Paul August|Paul August]] [[User_talk:Paul August|&#9742;]] 12:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 ::::I'm with you here, maybe we need to sketch a network of articles that will satisfy the community and lessen the confusion. &mdash; [[User:Kallikanzarid|Kallikanzarid]]<sup>[[User talk:Kallikanzarid|talk]]</sup> 13:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
+==[[Wikipedia:Proposed deletion|Proposed deletion]] of [[Movable singularity]]==
+[[Image:Ambox warning yellow.svg|left|48px|]]
+The article [[Movable singularity]] has been [[Wikipedia:Proposed deletion|proposed for deletion]]&#32; because of the following concern:
+:'''A search for references found several [[WP:RS|references]] for the phrase, but multiple phrasing differences between sources and this article make impossible to [[WP:V|Validate]] the accuracy of the article content'''
+While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be [[WP:DEL#REASON|deleted for any of several reasons]].
+You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{tlc|proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your [[Help:edit summary|edit summary]] or on [[Talk:Movable singularity|the article's talk page]].
+Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{tlc|proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the [[Wikipedia:Proposed deletion|proposed deletion process]], but other [[Wikipedia:deletion process|deletion process]]es exist.  The [[Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion|speedy deletion]] process can result in deletion without discussion, and [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion|articles for deletion]] allows discussion to reach [[Wikipedia:Consensus|consensus]] for deletion.<!-- Template:PRODWarning --> [[User:JeepdaySock|JeepdaySock]] <small>(AKA, [[User talk:Jeepday|Jeepday]])</small> 17:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)