User talk:Michael Hardy/Archive7

Thanks

Thank you very much for help with stacked exponents. Rick Norwood (talk) 16:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dual vector space symbol

Hi, do you know how to type in LateX the little v-like symbol commonly used for duals (e.g. dual vector space)? Thanks, Jakob.scholbach (talk) 16:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried \vee as in:

X^{\vee }

. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:39, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Phenomena"?

You said ...

The Cambridge Dictionary includes this: "The term is now generally used to label the phenomena that a variable that is extreme on its first measurement will tend to be closer to the centre of the distribution for a later measurement." Does it really say "phenomena" instead of "phenomenon"?

Yes, the version I have (2nd Edition) does say "phenomena". I don't have access to a later edition. Melcombe (talk) 09:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re

Hi, Michael Hardy. I'm working on the article at the moment. It should be up in a day or so. PasswordUsername (talk) 05:15, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can you suggest a math field for abstract rewriting system?

I guess that since mathematicians were involved in the origins of the concept it could be tagged with wikiproject math as well. But I'm not sure in which field to categorize it... Pcap ping 09:43, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Korowai

Hello there. Thanks for your additions to this article. Could you please add references to it - preferably as in-line cites. many thanks --Merbabu (talk) 05:28, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question

Just curious, why did you add a discussion line on the article page of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest (I have reverted it!) instead of the talk page? --Dave1185 (talk) 21:23, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did not add it there instead of on the talk page. I clearly stated my position on the talk page. I will soon edit that section of the article accordingly. Tags saying the appropriateness of a section is disputed belong at the beginning of the section, not on the talk page. It's the same as with tags disputing the accuracy of articles.

Accordingly, I've reverted your reversion. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:11, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah... I see what you mean now! Btw, I do monitor your page for a reply after I left a message, so there's really no need to go to mine and do a double job. Thanks! --Dave1185 (talk) 22:26, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to thank you

for moving GADT to proper caps. I wanted to request the move, but I always found that requesting a move on the official channel was rather cumbersome, so I get a fit of laziness whenever I'm supposed to do it. Pcap ping 19:29, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome.

(Official channels aren't always the only way to do something.) Michael Hardy (talk) 19:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MacRobert-E function

Many thanks for helping launch the MAcRobert-E function article. The URL for the article currently is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacRobert_E_function> while that for the Meijer-G function is <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meijer_G-function>; the latter uses a hyphen "-" where the former uses an underscore character "_". I think this should be unified one way or the other unless there is a good reason for this difference.

62.180.184.4 (talk) 00:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Another question

Mike, could you please take a look at this: Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#Continous flouting of civility by User:Starstylers (especially his edit summaries/history) and give me a honest opinion of what you think. Just so you'd know, there are 3 editors (myself included) who all felt that Starstylers need to clean up his act, as he's been very obnoxious and rude to almost everyone he disagrees with (especially to me, User:Merbabu and User:Davidelit). Even when evidence are abound to indicate that he's pushing his point of view on certain article pages here on Wikipedia, oftentimes he would labeled us with all sorts of names instead of working together to come to a common consensus. And quite frankly, his disruptive behaviour is hurting Wikipedia on a few wikiproject such a Singapore, Indonesia, Papua and Kopassus, take a look at them and you would certainly notice issues with neutrality (NPOV). --Dave1185 (talk) 04:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A question sill unanswered after 4 years on this wiki

See Talk:Anonymous_recursion#.22anonymous.22.3F. Pcap ping 01:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The same issue appears at Fixed point combinator; I've elaborated my objection there since that article gets more love. Some people appear deeply convinced that one must have named functions in lambda calculus and that the fixed point combinators help us get rid of the names. Or something like that. I don't quite comprehend their line of reasoning. Pcap ping 05:48, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I figured out what these guys mean. Pcap ping 07:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

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WuhWuzDat 12:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tiger graph

Michael, the article was created in January 2007, and you formatted it a day ago. However, I think it should be deleted because it is an original research that's open to interpretation. If you agree, please delete it the proper WP way. Thanks. Giftlite (talk) 20:15, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for some pi

Although I consider myself quite intelligent, I sort of never took a liking to math any more difficult than high-school level, and so when I see things like a sigma and x (or k) to the limit as it approaches zero or k! -- I immediately shut down. Fortunately, the third article you suggested doesn't have any of those things until the third section, so I may read up to there. Conceptually, though, I think math is wonderful, hence my recent questions that stir my fancy -- I just need them explained so that I can understand them :) Thanx for your help! DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 23:59, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the articles

Thank you so much for giving me links to Faulhaber's formula.--Email4mobile (talk) 00:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Popoviciu's inequality

There seems to be another inequality concerning convex functions known as "Popoviciu's inequality" (see [1]). In fact, it seems that "Popoviciu's inequality" usually refers to the other one. Shreevatsa (talk) 15:02, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, for now I've moved it to Popoviciu's inequality on variances. Can you create an article on the other one? That could be called "Popoviciu's inequality", and it would bear a disambiguation link at the top:

This is not about Popoviciu's inequality on variances.

(or words to that effect). Then we can sort out the incoming links to the two articles. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I've created the short article Popoviciu's inequality. Please take a glance at it with your excellent eye for formatting errors and the like. Actually, there seems to be yet another Popoviciu's inequality also from 1965, that is similar to Hölder's inequality, but the one in the article (about convex functions) seems to be the most common one. Cheers, Shreevatsa (talk) 17:34, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest to merge these inequalities (together with Bhatia–Davis inequality and others) into variance bounds or similar, see here for sort of a survey.

It doesn't make sense to include the Popoviciu's inequality article created by Shreevatsa in anything called "variance bounds", since that's not what it's about. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:55, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I meant Popoviciu's inequality on variances. (Igny (talk) 22:58, 26 August 2009 (UTC))[reply]

You suggested merging "these" inequalities. The word "these" is plural; it implies more than one. I thought you meant the two inequalities attributed in the article titles to Popoviciu. So now it's unclear what you meant by "these". Michael Hardy (talk) 23:20, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Type theory articles of interest to mathematicians

Apparently, I've managed to convince at least one mathematician that type theory as used in computer science, and programming languages in particular, is "the same" as the one from mathematics. Since computer scientits "took over" type theory in the '70s by greatly expanding the topics that they consider to be part of this theory, I've suggested during that discussion that a {{distinguished subcategory}} be created to flag those articles that are also (or especially) of interest to mathematicians, so they wouldn't have to wade through that many computer science related topics. Since you seem to have the time to go through type-theory-related articles (wikistalking!), perhaps you could make that subcategory and add the appropriate articles to it. I wouldn't dare decide what is and what isn't of interest to mathematicians from Category:type theory. (Initially Arthur Rubin wanted disjoint categories for math and CS type theory. As far as I can tell he's not interested in following up on the discussion anymore.) Thanks, Pcap ping 07:47, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, wanna laugh your socks off at the impertinence/ignorance of some computer scientist? (I can't believe that Springer let that book get published with the claim sticking out in a box like that, not in some obscure footnote...) Pcap ping 08:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He probably "missexpressed" himself given that English is not his native language. On the next page he does give credit to mathematicians for inventing the concept. He's actually quite clueful later in that he explains that the concrete implementation of a type as done in implementations of programing lanuges is a model of a type. And he gives models other than sets, e.g. Dana Scott's lattices. Pcap ping 09:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am considering writing an article on type (type theory) because data type is currently linked in most type theory articles instead of just "type" even in really odd contexts like function types. "Data type" means different things to different people. The definition we have at data type is actually that of an abstract data type, (which has existential type), or rather just a set model thereof, so it's quite unsuitably linked in many places. Pcap ping 09:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, if look at the source cited in our article on data type, you'll see how misleading our article is. It changed "Data type as set of values with set of operations", which is a topic amongst others in type theory (different models exist) to "A data type [...] is a set of values and the operations on those values." Many article on computer science around here are way more sloppy and misleading than that, so I'm not really surprised. Pcap ping 09:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Carleson's theorem

Hey, thanks for your edits at Carleson's theorem - the typesetting looks much better now, without great bulges on certain lines. I had experimented with scriptstyle/textstyle commands to achieve this goal, but with little success, and I hadn't realised that the HTML equivalents available were as extensive as they seem to be. I was just wondering if you had information on how widely supported (operating system/web browser-wise) some of these symbols are? (and apologies if this is just a newbie question) I found the article Wikipedia:Mathematical_symbols now, which is helpful, but while it states at the top that the symbols given should work on "most browsers", WP:MOSMATH even suggests as an example that it might be wise to avoid the use of ∈ for compatibility reasons (under "Special symbols"). Do you have any further information? Thanks! Tcnuk (talk) 09:13, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Error

Thank you for picking up my error and replacing it with something suitable. It was completely absurd, yes. I just saw an image wanting of a caption and added something brief based on what I thought I was seeing in the diagram. I'll attempt to be more careful in future. Best, —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 16:24, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks (mostly) for edits of "Product Integral"

Hi Michael

Thanks for your edits of Product Integral ... mostly. I disagree with your thoughts on type III (dx-less) product integrals, but am not in a position to argue the case. Perhaps in the future.

Regards,

Daryl Williams (talk) 01:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome.

I don't think I ever saw the "Type III" integrals; I came along long after those were expunged from the article. I looked at the history and they didn't look quite right as they stood, but I'd have to think about that further. (Actually, the limit looked as if it would always diverge in any reasonable casses. Maybe that can be fixed by rephrasing it somehow—I don't know.) Michael Hardy (talk) 02:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

about parentheses

Dear Michael, I have a question of wiki-style:

\textstyle \log(x)

vs

\textstyle \log \,x

\textstyle \mathrm {Re} {(\alpha )}

vs

\textstyle \mathrm {Re} {\,\alpha }

and so on. Using both in the same article according to aesthetics is acceptable? I found no clue in the MOS, but I see you are quite careful in these matters, so I'd like to hear your opinion. My point is that in some cases parentheses are just too many... Best, --pma (talk) 12:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC).[reply]

I don't have strong preferences between the two forms above when taken out of context, but I think in some contexts I would prefer one or the other. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:50, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My bad

Regarding my recent edit of that article that used to be about detecting imaginary roots of a quadradic, sorry for my error and thank you for pointing it out to me.

You are doing a great job, keep up the good work. I never thought that this article contained very much in the way of original research, and like others I seem to remember a high school algebra teacher explaining about how when the parabola did not touch the x axis, that this meant that the intersection was imaginary. Maybe it was a circle and a line, I can't be sure, but he seemed to be arguing in a graphical manner for the existence of imaginary numbers.

A concept that I really did not appreciate at the time.

TeamQuaternion (talk) 01:52, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Order Dab

It's truly a shame that you are involving yourself in that matter without understanding Dab & MoSDab beyond the point where you have to ask about {{SIA}}. We have colleagues who may choose to remedy that, but even if your tone and manner inclined to me to doing so, i'm flying to the Alps today, and it is a truly attractive prospect that i'll have forgotten this matter existed before a realistic temptation to do anything about it can arise.
--Jerzy•t 17:35, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OMGWTFBBQ, Michael Hardy, you've lived all your life for nothing. You don't even being to comprehend the depths of WikiProject:Disambiguation, seee-yaaa from the ALPS. Sorry, I could not resist. Pcap ping 18:08, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You could have just pointed Michael to WP:SETINDEX instead... Pcap ping 18:24, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever may be the facts concerning "SIA" and WikiProject Disambiguation, the result that Jerzy brought about was irrational and perverse. If we should have a list of organizations called "orders", it seems clear that we should not achieve that result by moving the order disambiguation page to that title and then deleting all of its contents and writing that new page over it. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Covariance

Hi, I was wondering if you could provide me a brief explanation of why you deleted the example computation of covariance? I would like to fix the errors. I am referring to the page as it looked on this date:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Covariance&oldid=307487127

Awaterl (talk) 08:01, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The example is written in such a way that I have to guess what was meant, and if construed literally is quite badly wrong. First it says

Take the two random variables to be:

{\color {blue}X}={\begin{bmatrix}x_{1}\\x_{2}\\x_{3}\\x_{4}\end{bmatrix}}={\begin{bmatrix}\color {blue}1\\\color {blue}2\\\color {blue}3\\\color {blue}4\end{bmatrix}}\qquad {\color {red}Y}={\begin{bmatrix}y_{1}\\y_{2}\\y_{3}\\y_{4}\end{bmatrix}}={\begin{bmatrix}\color {red}3\\\color {red}3\\\color {red}4\\\color {red}3\end{bmatrix}}

At first it looks as if random vectors is meant. In that case the covariance would be a 4×4 matrix. Then it looks as if what is meant is constant random vectors. In that case the covariance would be the 4×4 matrix of zeros. Finally after taking the whole thing in to account, I begin to suspect that what was intended was that the two random variables take values equal to the four components in the random vector with equal probabilities. Finally, it seems to be saying the expected value of a random vector is a scalar. What was actually meant was the average of the components of the vector. When working with data sets consisting of finitely many discrete observations, that sort of matrix notation is used, but I've never seen the expectation operator used in that way. I think once I've deciphered it, I can see that the computation is correct, but it not only requires deciphering, but also is wrong if the notation is construed in the usual ways. Michael Hardy (talk) 15:12, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Uniqueness for Weierstrass transform

If F(t) is a constant function F(t)=c, is it true that f(t)=c almost everywhere? I guess more generally that if F1 and F2 are the transforms of f1 and f2 and F1=F2, then f1=f2 almost everywhere, but for what I'm doing, I only need the simple case where F is a constant. It seems to be true by applying the inverse of the transform, but the article is not clear about when the inverse exists. Is there a formal theorem that would apply?John Lawrence (talk) 15:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your second statement is correct if it holds when F1 = 0. I believe that is correct, and I suspect if I thought about it for a few minutes, I could give either an argument or a link to a Wikipedia article where it's found. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect your first proposition (and maybe your second) follows from an exercise in William Feller's famous book on probability. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Linas

I hate to give the impression of canvassing, but Linas is clearly not going to listen to editors/admins he does not have much respect for. Perhaps you could have a word with him and advice him to calm down and stop using invectives that will only get him blocked or even banned? Linas already got blocked, block extended, and locked from his talk page too, plus there's already an ANI thread where some asked for his banishment. I already asked User:CBM to contact Linas, but then I recalled Carl wants to avoid the appearance of cabalism amongst Math editors, so he might choose to stay uninvolved. Thanks. Pcap ping 19:47, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Thanks for your helpful comments on the Inverse bundle! I now see the point of these vague descriptions at the beginning of mathematical articles. Cheers Guygurari (talk) 11:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Equation arrays

How might one include an equation array in Wikipedia? In LaTeX I would type

\[ \begin{eqnarray*} 
a &=& bc \ , \\
b &=& cd \ .
\end{eqnarray*} \]

to get an unenumerated equation array. Where the ampersands surrond the things on each line which will be lined up in the final output. I've tried to use the eqnarray and eqnarray* enviroments on Wikipedia, but it won't compile. Any suggestions? ~~ Dr Dec (Talk) ~~ 15:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Minnesota Meetup

2009

Proposed date: Saturday, October 10. Details under discussion.

Please share this with anyone who may be interested.

Delivered by Jonathunder (talk) 21:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mergeto
Thanks for your note, resolved. Rich Farmbrough, 22:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC).[reply]
Referencing
Hi Michael Hardy/Archive7! An article you have been involved with has been tagged as being in need of further sources to avoid being deleted. If you can help with these issues please see Talk:Double-barrelled name.
Theorem of repeating decimal
Please refer to Talk:Repeating_decimal#Theorem of repeating decimal. What is your opinion?--Ling Kah Jai (talk) 13:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Page move
It's to name it like other similar articles; they can be seen in the Introductions category. They are all named in a similar fashion. But yes, I have indeed given the article an incorrect title, and have now renamed it accordingly. Gary King (talk) 03:05, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
dx
Hello there. I understand your post about the definition of dx not making sense in terms of integration. For computational purposes I agree that dx should be treated like an infinitesimal quantity. This is adequate enough for someone who has started learning calculus. However, for someone like me who is sufficiently familiar with calculus and yet has not gone up the level of differential forms etc, I believe that using dx makes no sense in regard to differentiation and integration. Differentiation can very well be done without any reference to things like dy and dx, and in integration we merely need the fundamental theorem of calculus. (dx might denote the measure function or independent variable but that's all.) The only place we seriously encounter dx is in differential equations and they make sense if I take Anton's definition of dx being a variable. So I feel that at the amateur level this definition is somewhat useful.
After having said all that let me add that I am a mathematical novice and your opinion will be of the highest value for me. Regards--Shahab (talk) 08:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Talkback

Hello, Michael Hardy. You have new messages at Skittleys's talk page.
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Empirical mean?
I guess you're the one who first made it redirect to sample mean? It now points to arithmetic mean. Anyway, could you pls have a look at this question on its discussion page. Because that plea had inspired only one (not particularly helpful) reply ages ago, I tried to obtain a better one with this note to its author, User:Igny:
(Sorry this is nearly a year old, but...) in talk:arithmetic mean#empirical mean I seconded Hv's objection to an unexplained redirect. Consider the situation of a Wikipedia user who is reading the article on principal component analysis or the one on empirical measure and encounters the term empirical mean but is unfamiliar with it. Such a user would likely click through the link and find himself inexplicably confronted with an article not about emprical means, but about arithmetic means.
Your reply to our perplexity was a suggestion to read about empirical measures. The first problem with that reply is that, residing as it does on a talk page, it will likely never be seen by our hapless user. A further problem is that even the article to which you referred us does not unambiguously define empirical mean. And the worst problem with your suggestion is that the empirical-measure article may well be where some of our hapless users encountered the unfamiliar term to begin with!
I'd fix the problem if I thought myself qualified, but I don't. So I'm appealing to you to do so. Could you please edit the arithmetic mean article to make clear (1) why any user expecting to land on an article about empirical means ends up here instead and (2) the meaning of empirical mean, or at least the relationship between empirical and arithmetic means.
Thanks in advance.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 01:59, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No dice. Could you by any chance help to patch this gap? Regards.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 16:19, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, thanks for repairing the redirection. But the other problem remains. People reading various articles who encounter one term (namely empirical mean) and click on it to learn more will still find themselves dumped at an article about a different term—now instead of wondering if the term is synonymous with arithmetic mean they get to wonder whether it's a synonym for sample mean.
Request... could you either add something like "also known as empirical mean" in the first line of the article on sample means or else add some explicit discussion of the similarities and differences between these two topics that we are left to infer do bear some mutual affinity.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 12:42, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Talkback

Hello, Michael Hardy. You have new messages at Skittleys's talk page.
Message added 09:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]
Skittleys (talk) 09:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Super-root
As you have recently contributed to the article and seem to have enough knowledge on the subject to make a fair judgement on whether it's notable or not, you may have an opinion of its suggested merge with tetration. If you do please discuss it here, as the consensus currently seems to be in deadlock, and this is causing a large edit war across both articles. Robo37 (talk) 18:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Question for you
at Talk:Faà di Bruno's formula. Dewey process (talk) 22:39, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Too much TeX

Hello, Michael Hardy. You have new messages at Nbarth's talk page.
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(Actionable reply, if you could comment – thanks!)
Merger of Sudbury Valley School and Sudbury school
I have proposed the merging of Sudbury Valley School into Sudbury school. If you would like to vote on the merger, please visit Talk:Sudbury school#Merger Two. PYRRHON talk 19:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Talkback: Indecomposable

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clarification

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Balanced prime
Thanks for weighing in at Inset number. For unclear reasons I typed 47 instead of 53 as second term into OEIS...Nevertheless, we do have a fair stub at Balanced prime and this name is uncommon, so I took the opportunity to delete it per the brand new speedy deletion criterion A10 that i actually opposed. If you have further comments on the article, the deletion or the CSD, let me know or comment at the appropriate talk page.--Tikiwont (talk) 15:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Talkback: Harish-Chandra

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Suggested changes to Monty Hall problem
You are invited to join the discussion at talk:Monty Hall problem#Changes suggested by JeffJor, Martin Hogbin, and Glkanter. Rick Block (talk) 04:09, 3 December 2009 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})[reply]
Re: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Catalog of articles in probability theory
Hi, Could you please reconsider the tone of your posting at the above AfD, I found it a little rude. I'm sure that wasn't your intention. Also, could you please remove the long list of other articles that haven't been nominated for deletion, as it disrupts the conversation and makes replies to your questions difficult, and note that the article in question is "Catalog of articles in probability theory", not "List of mathematics topics". The problem I had with the article is that it cannot be edited in the usual way due to a notice on the page and a bot which edits the article based on markup on the talk page (hence non-standard). This isn't compatible with our editing policies. However, I have removed this restriction (see the previous lead on the article) and proposed a compromise and I am more than willing to withdraw my nomination. If after you have removed the long list you leave your questions I will answer them at the AfD. Thanks, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Verbal (talk • contribs)
"The problem I had with the article is that it cannot be edited in the usual way due to"

...and a problem I have with your nomination of this article for deletion is that you nowhere explained in your proposal for deletion that there is any problem with editing. You should make your case in your proposal. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I seem to have annoyed you, and that was not my intention. I myself removed the restriction after some comments on the AfD made clear that the bot wouldn't break the article, and I was yet to post about this at the AfD (due to real life getting in the way). Please see the old lead which explicitly banned normal editing. I'd rather you didn't refer to me as "Verbal", but simply Verbal. Feel free to ask me questions on my talk page. Thanks, Verbal chat 17:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't have guessed that there was a problem with manual editing by reading your deletion proposal; it looked as if you simply wanted to delete an article because it looked a bit unusual to you. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pentti Linkola
I noticed that you did some work on this article, and would like to expand it to include his recommendation (in Can Life Prevail) that the UN develop hit squads to target large urban population centers (with neutron bombs as I recall), and also the discussion on the 9/11 terrorists being "superior moral human beings" for their actions. Understanding that this is a BLP, that NPOV is important, and that including secondary sources is nearly impossible as they are difficult (at best) to find, what is your feeling on this? Nobody's M P (talk) 16:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I had thought the reason for using secondary rather than primary sources was to indicate that a concept is in standard use, rather than only that the original author used it. That doesn't seem to apply to a situation like this. But I'm not really familiar with the discussions on that. If you can cite reliable sources showing that he proposed those things, I think they should be included. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Help with dermatology-related content
I am looking for more help at the dermatology task force, particularly with our new Bolognia push 2009!? Perhaps you would you be able to help us? I could send you the login information for the Bolognia push if you are interested? ---kilbad (talk) 01:07, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fourier transform on finite groups
I have some questions about the Fourier transform on finite groups article, and since you have edited every math-related article on Wikipedia, I decided to ask you.
What are the irreducible representations of G? Irreducible representation redirects to Simple module, which, despite being English, I have trouble understanding. I can guess – but if I guessed right, then there shouldn't be any $d_{i}$ in the inverse formula. It's supposed to be the "degree" of the representation, which is supposed to be the size of the matrix, according to Fourier transform on finite groups. Considering the elements expressed as permutation matrices over the set of group elements, diagonalized into block-diagonal matrices and calling each block-diagonal matrix a representation of the element, the given formula becomes correct if the $d_{i}$ is omitted from the inverse. (Sorry if my use of the terminology is incomprehensible.)
As an example of what I'm arbitrarily guessing I'm supposed to do, the dihedral group D₄ has generators m, n, where m² = n² = (mn)⁴ = I. The action of m and n on the set (I, m, nmn, nmnm, n, nm, mn, mnm) is then:
$m={\begin{bmatrix}0&1&0&0&0&0&0&0\\1&0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\0&0&0&1&0&0&0&0\\0&0&1&0&0&0&0&0\\0&0&0&0&0&0&1&0\\0&0&0&0&0&0&0&1\\0&0&0&0&1&0&0&0\\0&0&0&0&0&1&0&0\end{bmatrix}},n={\begin{bmatrix}0&0&0&0&1&0&0&0\\0&0&0&0&0&1&0&0\\0&0&0&0&0&0&1&0\\0&0&0&0&0&0&0&1\\1&0&0&0&0&0&0&0\\0&1&0&0&0&0&0&0\\0&0&1&0&0&0&0&0\\0&0&0&1&0&0&0&0\end{bmatrix}},P={\frac {1}{\sqrt {8}}}{\begin{bmatrix}1&1&1&1&1&1&1&1\\1&1&1&1&-1&-1&-1&-1\\1&-1&-1&1&1&-1&-1&1\\1&-1&-1&1&-1&1&1&-1\\2&0&0&-2&0&0&0&0\\0&2&-2&0&0&0&0&0\\0&0&0&0&2&0&0&-2\\0&0&0&0&0&2&-2&0\end{bmatrix}}$ .
The matrices P^-1mP and P^-1nP are block diagonal with 4 1x1 blocks and 1 4x4 block. Are the irreducible representations of D₄ (reading the blocks of P^-1mP and P^-1nP):
$\rho _{1}(m)={\begin{bmatrix}1\end{bmatrix}},\rho _{1}(n)={\begin{bmatrix}1\end{bmatrix}}$

$\rho _{2}(m)={\begin{bmatrix}1\end{bmatrix}},\rho _{2}(n)={\begin{bmatrix}-1\end{bmatrix}}$

$\rho _{3}(m)={\begin{bmatrix}-1\end{bmatrix}},\rho _{3}(n)={\begin{bmatrix}1\end{bmatrix}}$

$\rho _{4}(m)={\begin{bmatrix}-1\end{bmatrix}},\rho _{4}(n)={\begin{bmatrix}-1\end{bmatrix}}$

$\rho _{5}(m)={\begin{bmatrix}0&1&0&0\\1&0&0&0\\0&0&0&-1\\0&0&-1&0\end{bmatrix}},\rho _{5}(n)={\begin{bmatrix}0&0&1&0\\0&0&0&1\\1&0&0&0\\0&1&0&0\end{bmatrix}}$ , or am I guessing wrong? If my guess is right, then erasing $d_{i}$ from the inverse gives the right result. I can't find an easily understandable article which says clearly what to do, so I'm guessing.
Thanks – Κσυπ Cyp 23:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, it seems I'm not that good at diagonalizing sets of matrices... My $\rho _{5}$ could be simplified to two identical blocks of $\rho _{5}(m)={\begin{bmatrix}1&0\\0&-1\end{bmatrix}},\rho _{5}(n)={\begin{bmatrix}0&1\\1&0\end{bmatrix}}$ , which is consistent with the $d_{i}$ factor in the article. If each block of NxN matrices happens to be duplicated N times for some reason I don't yet understand, then it would explain the need for the $d_{i}$ factor... In which case there isn't any question left for you to answer. Κσυπ Cyp 17:36, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't worked on every math article, and this one isn't my strongest point. But if you take it to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics, you'd probably get some reasonable replies fairly quickly. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:14, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding move
This edit undid User:Good Olfactory's move. I strongly agree with your version of the title. The MOS:ENDASH section of the manual of style clearly needs to be adjusted. Sławomir Biały (talk) 02:43, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Too many capital letters
On my user page you commented:
Please look at this edit. Wikipedia:Manual of Style clearly requires lower case in this context. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:07, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I salute the effort to make such corrections. I also applaud the provision of a link to the source of motivation for the change. As a robot who feels no human emotion, I'm all down with that. :P
But as a meta-comment, I'd say that one has to be a little careful of turning off sincere human editors with a personally-directed nitpick. If you look at the meat of my changes, I rewrote an entire introduction to make it clearer: see changes. You changed exactly 4 characters. I may think that's a good change, but still...a lot of wiki is about how we motivate each other. And I'm especially concerned about how new users (who are sensitive to criticism) would feel if they had made such an edit and that's all the feedback they got! Alas...
So thank you for the correction. But I think in my case (and the case of anyone who's been around wiki a while) you can just make the change and document the "why" in the changelog, we'll see it and absorb it there. The user talk page is a better place to emphasize how grateful we are to each other for making the whole thing better, with a little bit of "hey, check out this link, it may help in the future" tacked on.
Best, Meta Metaeducation (talk) 09:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Orbital integral
Actually, I tajgged it as being like an essay or personal reflection. It looked like an essay do I tagged it - simple. Jezhotwells (talk) 12:41, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fundamental lemma of Langlands and Shelstad
I find that edit odd too. I was trying to move a full stop before references and may accidentally have edited an old version. I am not attached to the content. --Rumping (talk) 20:53, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Talkback

Hello, Michael Hardy. You have new messages at Intelligentsium's talk page.
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Intelligentsium 01:06, 24 December 2009 (UTC) [reply]

?
Hello, why you change the name of the articles ? — Neustradamus (✉) 21:51, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Today I moved Victor White to Victor White (flying ace) for the purpose of distinguishing him from another person with that name, and in order to make Victor White into a disambiguation page. I also moved a couple of articles that began with the words "Diffie-Hellman" to titles beginning with "Diffie–Hellman", because Wikipedia:Manual of Style prescribes that way of using dashes. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:00, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
ANI
You are mentioned at the Administrators' noticeboard. ZooFari 07:18, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I clicked on the link you provided and it doesn't link to anything that mentions my name. Please try again. Michael Hardy (talk) 07:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Scroll down. ZooFari 07:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#User:Michael Hardy and frankly yor remarks in both links appear to be somewhat condescending. While I have no idea what promted your remarks, the aim is to rise above any provocation. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 07:38, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hola :)
Español: Hola amigo wikipedista podrias mejorar el articulo Deysi Cori (This appears to be English Wikipedia's first article created in the year 2010). Saludos Globalphilosophy (talk) 01:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Double redirects
Thanks for the information (and help) concerning double redirects. Ulner (talk) 18:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Mathematics#How_to_factorise
Hi Michael. Feel free to argue against me, but please keep cool and do not call me (nor anybody else) silly. Regards. Bo Jacoby (talk) 23:19, 3 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I called some particular comments of yours silly. That is how they appear to me. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nevertheless, it is out of order. And unfair too. I might have given the OP (and even you) some new information. Some mathematicians avoid solving algebraic equations if possible, not noting that numerical factorization of a polynomial is very easily done by computer. Bo Jacoby (talk) 14:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Hello, Michael Hardy. You have new messages at -m-i-k-e-y-'s talk page.
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What is part of mathematics
Michael, you may be interested in the following discussion, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Computational complexity theory as part of "mathematics". Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why plural?
Yes, thanks. My error. I have corrected it. --Epipelagic (talk) 18:54, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:HYPHEN
Michael, I left you a reply (in agreement with you) at Talk:Open_source_software#Move. I hope the consensus is that such controversial changes can be undone. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 23:18, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would like a debate — Neustradamus (✉) 23:36, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone objects to the proposed move, and remains silent about their objections for more than three months after it's proposed on the talk page, then the only way they're going to be drawn into a debate is to actually move the page. Since no one's objected after more than three months, I've gone ahead and moved it. Of course, starting a debate was not my reason for moving it, but if anyone wants a debate, maybe this is what will bring that about. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:51, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well done. I see the user I hadn't mentioned here by name, has now popped up here too. Unfortunately, as you will see from his recent contributions, Neustradamus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been unhelpfully removing hyphens from a lot of other articles containing adjectival phrases that should be hyphenated, e.g."free software licence" etc. It would be a lot of work manually undoing his edits using the Undo button, and obviously, I don't have access to the efficient admin-only revert tools. Would you mind going over his recent contributions to revert the changes? Thanks. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 00:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK but have you see the revert ? Compare the license name after and before ? Now there is for example: "The GPL requires any derivative work that is released to be released according to the GPL while the BSD licence does not" (If I see a good license source : http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php it is license) and other ... so we must put the good name, you are not okay with me ? — Neustradamus (✉) 00:42, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I find it very difficult to communicate with you because of your poor English. You seem to be either ignoring or not understanding what everybody has already told you on your talk page and elsewhere. What is your point? 91.187.66.243 (talk) 00:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is strange, only you have a problem, it is clear, before there are good license names and after not (it is only a "c"/"s" problem if you do not see) — Neustradamus (✉) 01:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure "revert" is more efficient than "undo" (but let me know if I'm missing something). As far as I know, it has to be done with each article separately. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I vaguely remember reading somewhere once upon a time that there is an admin-only mechanism for reverting en masse an editor's edits within a specified range of dates and times, but I am probably wrong about that. I'll just have to undo his edits manually. Thanks anyway. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 00:39, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly you are right but I haven't used that. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, the tool turned out to be (admin) WP:ROLLBACK. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 12:59, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
...and as I've said, as far as I know, rollback works only one article at a time. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, although this apparently works as an addon that can automatically revert all of the edits listed on any page of Special:Contributions/Username. 91.187.66.243 (talk) 21:57, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which just got used on this very talk page. Pcap ping 13:28, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK because before I was a vandal or a bad guy... for information I added a reference "(or free software licence in commonwealth usage)", but the article is not good yet... but now it is in progress — Neustradamus (✉) 00:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Now it is clear for you about open-source, this conversation has been of some improvement :) now you can rename:
List of free and open-source software packages (done)

Free and open-source software

Open-source license (done)

Open-source hardware (done) — Neustradamus (✉) 01:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
but I see Open Source on the official Open Source Initiative website : http://www.opensource.org/licenses — Neustradamus (✉) 01:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Predicting number of items in a set
For your information, see Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Mathematics/2010_January_6#Predicting_number_of_items_in_a_set_.28statistics.29.
Regards Bo Jacoby (talk) 13:03, 13 January 2010 (UTC).[reply]
diagonalizing a matrix?
Michael,
A question -- Suppose I had a plain-old ordinary matrix A with matrix elements A_ij such that A_ij = f(i*j) for some function f, and i*j is simply the ordinary product of the two indexes ... this is a symmetric matrix -- are there any "well known" theorems that can be applied to such a beast, beyond that which normal symmetric matricies might have? Anything that can be said about its eigenvalues, or the act of diagonalizing such a thing? I need a kick to get my brain started thinking about this -- I think I once saw something, but can't remember what. Thanks linas (talk) 23:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
AfD nomination of Gravity set

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Unreferenced BLPs
Hello Michael Hardy! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 1 of the articles that you created is tagged as an Unreferenced Biography of a Living Person. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring this article up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 867 article backlog. Once the article is adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the article:
Richard Milner (fiction writer) - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
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Move to 1947–48 Australia rugby union tour of the British Isles, Ireland, France and North America
I have moved this back to the original name. The British Isles includes Ireland whereas Britain does not. The article could arguably have British Isles in the title and omit Ireland but this would cause problems from the Irish. This naming has previously been discussed by WP:RU. noq (talk) 01:06, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The main purpose of the move was to change the hyphen to an endash. The hyphen is incorrect according to WP:MOS. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
... I see: you've moved it to a new title it never had before, with an endash rather than a hyphen. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:23, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Talk:Cantor's first uncountability proof
I hope you don't mind that I closed the discussion thread at Talk:Cantor's first uncountability proof between you and an IP editor. Of course you can unclose it if you would like, but it seems to me that the discussion is going downhill, rather than uphill, with more conceptual misunderstandings rather than fewer, and the IP editor's remarks are becoming more personally directed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Isosceles triangle theorem and Logic Theorist
Just a heads up, I read the reference (see [2]) you gave for the Logic Theorist proving the Isosceles triangle theorem and it didn't seem to me that it said what you added to the article, see the talk page for details. I blanked the section since it seemed like the actual story was rather boring, but maybe I'm misreading it. The article in general is still a work in progress since the proofs are mess, I'm working on them though.
Also, I largely rewrote and expanded pons asinorum which is closely related. There are a few nicely worded phrases that I can't take credit for though. See the talk there for why I didn't merge the articles.--RDBury (talk) 00:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
<math> versus html
Dear Michael, I have noticed your inline typographical corrections to some of the articles I have recently edited, like changing $z\in D$ to z ∈ D. I had earlier tried to work with this html style, but then switched to just using <math> all the time, for two reasons:
1. The html looks disgusting, not balanced (for me) by the fact that its size fits the text more (though is often still not perfect). Actually, since some inline math formulas cannot be substituted by html, the sizes and shapes of math symbols vary all the time, which is really a huge problem, I think.
2. Learning and remembering the html encryption and the pain to decipher what others wrote do not seem worth the time and energy of the editors. I'm not actually capable of reading your html edits, and I'm pretty sure there are many mathematicians who don't contribute to Wikipedia because of such (real or imagined) barriers.
Instead of coming up with innovative ways of making more readable html substitutes for math, like the crazy ƒ for $f$ , we should all use <math> just as $ in TeX, and hope that soon someone will fix this problem with html. In a year or 50, but it should eventually happen. Using <math> all the time might bring the date of the solution closer, since it will be more obvious to more people that something is to be fixed.
Of course, you might disagree with my first point, that's a matter of personal taste, but the fact that you actually changed my edits suggests to me that there might be some strong style consensus about this matter. Is there anything like that? That consensus should obviously be questioned, then... :-) Maybe I should bring this up on the project page? And may I just revert your edits? (Of course, I would put back the other changes you made, like intro sentence structure.)
Thanks, --GaborPete (talk) 06:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
helping with wikiproject statistics; odds page
Hi Michael,
Thanks for all the work you clearly put into math and statistics! I've been using wikipedia for years as a resource in both of those areas, and find it very helpful.
I do sometimes find things in statistics articles that seem unclear (especially for a layperson) or, less frequently, erroneous. However, I'm hesitant to edit b/c my knowledge of statistics and probability are very limited, and I'm brand new to editing wikipedia. I don't want to put up something false or poorly written on such important general interest topics if it's not likely to be removed quickly.
For instance- the odds article has mistakes, as well as overlap with other articles. If one jumps in and changes things in non-theoretical stat/probability articles, are false or poorly done edits generally repaired quickly? If not, what would be the fastest/best way to make a suggestion for a stat article known to more experienced editors who could verify that what I'm saying makes sense, and that it fits with the organization of statistics coverage that the current stat editing core has in mind?
More broadly, I'm interested to learn more about wikiproject statistics and how an amateur stat enthusiast could get involved.
Thanks, Kathryn Tzvia (talk) 12:22, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]