Talk:Constant (mathematics)

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 August 2021 and 14 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kcarr51. Peer reviewers: Ktom88.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:21, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

This Article Seems Redundant

Why does this article exist when Mathematical constant is so gloriously complete? Kerdek (Tell me if I screw up) 02:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Mathematical constant is mostly about famous numbers - $\pi$, $e$, the Golden Ratio, etc. I needed an article that discusses constant as a foil to Variable (mathematics). So this article serves to give a general definition to the concept of constant as opposed to variable; the Mathematical constant doesn't do that, with the possible exception of the "Unspecified constants" section. (e.g., look at Cassini oval - does making its link to constant go to Mathematical constant really make sense in that context?) If some kid is starting to learn math, I don't want them to have to wade through Mathematical constants; they should get the overview here. --JaGa^talk 11:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

These are very closely related and should be discussed on the same page in two different sections. This does not merit a separate page. I agree with Kerdek. -- IRP ☎ 23:24, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Oppose merge. The articles have different subjects. This article is about the general concept of constants as opposed to variables in mathematical expressions and equations, whereas mathematical constant is about specific constants such as e and π. Gandalf61 (talk) 00:11, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

These are still quite closely related and the general concept along with specific constants can indeed be discussed on the same page. -- IRP ☎ 04:37, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I still disagree, but let's wait and see what other feedback you get. I will mention this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:00, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The similarity of the two titles is misleading. Perhaps "mathematical constant" should be renamed "special numbers in mathematics", or "remarkable numbers", etc. This would make any merge proposal implausible. Tkuvho (talk) 11:20, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The present titles do create a misleading impression that they're the same topic, but those proposed names are terrible. Michael Hardy (talk) 11:30, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I did qualify my suggestion by "perhaps". Do you have a better title? Tkuvho (talk) 11:35, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The subjects are, despite the names, different. Mathematical terminology is not always consistent (for example field in mathematical physics is completely different than field in algebra), and these are the best titles for the subjects. Changing the names based on what the terminology ought to be rather than standard usage seems like a bad idea.--RDBury (talk) 12:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Oppose merger, largely for reasons already stated. The article constant (mathematics) is a much broader notion of constant that encompasses not only mathematical constants, but physical constants, constants of integration, etc. etc. Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:16, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Oppose merger. This article is not really about constants despite its title. It is about variables whose value remains the same within a certain context. JRSpriggs (talk) 07:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I also think that the articles should remain distinct, though there is serious need for renaming. Any ideas? CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

It is hard to change "mathematical constant" for the reasons discussed above, though it does mean "special numbers", "exceptional numbers", etc. Another idea would be to try to change the title of the other article, for example "constant quantity (mathematics)" and "variable quantity (mathematics)". Perhaps? Tkuvho (talk) 10:25, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

... or maybe combine constant (mathematics) and variable (mathematics) into a single article with redirects from the original titles. Precedents are positive number and negative number which redirect to negative and non-negative numbers; convex polygon and concave polygon which redirect to convex and concave polygons; and even number and odd number which redirect to parity (mathematics). Gandalf61 (talk) 10:33, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, I hadn't considered that. Ideas for a name of the combined article? CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:17, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

The most plausible solution is to change the name of this article so as not to give a misleading impression that its topic is the same as that of the other article. Maybe a merger with variable (mathematics) could work; I'm not sure. I've added a new section to this article, on context-dependence, which should make it even clearer that the topic is different. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:02, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps replace constant (mathematics) by constant quantity? Similarly for variable. Tkuvho (talk) 10:09, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

That won't work at all. Replacing STANDARD language with more complicated language that is less likely to be understood is not appropriate within Wikipedia. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:29, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Just because you don't understand the language does not mean everyone else cant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.194.158.70 (talk) 14:29, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Graph of a Constant

Hello, I was just wondering if anyone could get their hands on a graph of any constant. It's basically a horizontal line which you can plot by putting something like f(x)=12 or y=7 ... Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks, --MileLongRiver (talk) 18:15, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

This article seems clearly to be way past stub quality; I'm provisionally re-rating it as C-class, and I'd love to hear other opinions. -Bryanrutherford0 (talk) 02:08, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Reduce to disambiguation page

I think this page should be reduced to a disambiguation page, because "constant" has many different meanings in mathematics; it may refer to (see [1])

• Mathematical constant, a significantly interesting real number
• Some (often unknown or undetermined) value that in contrast to a variable remains unchanged
• Scalar (mathematics), a real number used in scalar multiplication
• A function is constant if it always assumes the same value independent of how its parameters are varied
• Constant of integration, an additive constant in an indefinite integral

One possibility would be to redirect to variable (mathematics) and put a "Constant (mathematics) redirects here. For other uses, see Constant" hatnote at the top of that article. Isheden (talk) 08:18, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

This change broke a lot of links that now have nowhere to go. The problem is that there are two meanings of constant in mathematics: (1) something that stays unchanged, not depending on other variables, and (2) a number that is independently interesting. The second meaning is mathematical constant. The other meaning is here, or was until your redirect. Now where do we send those links? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:14, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that this article should continue to exist. Merely redirecting it effectively deletes the page without a proper deletion discussion, and should require consensus. Moreover, the average reader arriving at the disambiguation page will not have the first clue of which "constant" is being discussed. bd2412 T 18:21, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

For the reasons stated above, "Constant (mathematics)" is a bit unfortunate since there are numerous meanings of the word constant in mathematics. However, since there are lots of links to this page the approach suggested above might be better: Redirect this to variable (mathematics) and put a "Constant (mathematics) redirects here. For other uses, see Constant" hatnote at the top of that article. Both basic meanings of constant are explained in the lead paragraph of that article. Is there really a need for a separate article on constants as opposed to variables? Isheden (talk) 06:47, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to hold off on actually doing this until others have had a chance to weigh in, but that works for me. The variable article indeed covers much of the same ground, better than this one. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:05, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I think a redirect and merge of this page to variable (mathematics) would be a good idea. It should not be a disambiguation page as there is already the page Constant for that. The page about variables explains the idea well an in the context of the difference between variables and constants and points to the other uses. This page on ts own is a bit too low level just trying to deal with the single topic constant on its own. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia not a dictionary. Dmcq (talk) 09:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Oppose a redirect, since variable (mathematics) assumes that this article exists. A merge is a possibility, but not one that appeals to me (certainly not until I see some kind of proposal for what the merged article might look like). It does seem that this article has a scope that's wider than variable (mathematics). And several uses of "constant" referred to here relate to things don't don't vary. I also think that WP:CONCEPTDAB suggests that this article should remain as a general discussion of "constant" in the wider (mathematical) sense. -- 101.119.14.252 (talk) 14:04, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

We need to keep two discussions apart here. The first is that the article, if kept, needs to cover only the concept of constants as opposed to variables, not all kinds of other uses of the word "constant" such as in e.g. constant function. There are already separate articles for each of the other uses and also a disambiguation page Constant. The second discussion is whether there is actually a need for a dictionary-type article defining constants as opposed to variables. Variable (mathematics) does exactly that. Isheden (talk) 21:17, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I disagree. Per WP:CONCEPTDAB, I think we need an article (not just a dab page) explaining the way that mathematicians use the term "constant. -- 101.119.15.172 (talk) 22:49, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I've commented on this in a new section below. Isheden (talk) 09:27, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

My thought is this should be a redirect to mathematical constant. There's no semantic difference between that and this title, and as "mathematical constant" is the usual term for known constants in mathematics that should be the target. The links to it would need checking and fixing up: they seem almost all to be in mathematics articles so a link mathematical constant would make sense for many; others would be covered by other topics linked such as constant term while those using "constant" just to say something doesn't change don't need a link as it's a common English word. I suspect that would cover all or almost all the maths use cases.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 02:02, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a big difference to me, and this is exactly what brought me here into this discussion. Mathematical constant is about numbers that have an intrinsic mathematical meaning: π, e, etc. Or, to pick one that we don't know the value of very precisely, Grothendieck's constant. But this article is (or should be) about a different meaning: things in expressions that look like variables but do not vary. You know, if I write that the running time of merge sort is O(n log n), then that really means that it's upper bounded by a constant times n log n, where "constant" means "something that is independent of n, but probably not independent of the machine you're running the algorithm on or the quirks of the programmer who implemented the algorithm". For a more mathematical example (the one that brought me here) there's a link to this article in abc conjecture#Theoretical results for some proven bounds on the conjecture, each of the form c < K f(rad(abc)), where K is a constant. K is not a mathematical constant in that there's no particular mathematical significance to its value, because we don't expect these to be the final results for the conjecture. It is just a number big enough to make the proof work. But it's a constant, because it doesn't depend on a, b, or c. That is the kind of constant that we need an article (or a discussion in the variable article) covering. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:45, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I would agree with that. I would also include "constant functions" like f(x) = y. I think all mathematicians have a feel for what "constant" means in this sense (more or less: something held constant over a specific scope), but I've never seen a really good definition. -- 101.119.15.172 (talk) 22:49, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

"Broad concept" of constant

Based on WP:CONCEPTDAB (as mentioned by an IP user above), to me it seems reasonable that the noun constant referring to any non-varying value (such as mathematical constant or constant of integration) would be the primary meaning that can be seen in some sense as a broad concept, whereas the adjective constant as in constant term or constant function are additional meanings of the word that should be disambiguated. The question then is whether physical constant, constant (programming), and logical constant can be considered other instances of the broad concept of "constant", compare for example parameter, argument, and particle. In that case, perhaps the current disambiguation page constant should be expanded to an article with other meanings presented in constant (disambiguation)? Isheden (talk) 09:23, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I really hate that stupid particle article. It should never have been set up. It should just have been a disambiguation page. And now having looked at that parameter page I think the same about it. The argument page is about an actual topic rather than being a dictionary word with its close meanings all jumbled up into one article. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. There is no parameter topic or particle topic with articles written about them. Dmcq (talk) 00:15, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Addition of Sources

I have added additional sources throughout the article. Kcarr51 (talk) 15:27, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Constant (topic paragraph)

I didn't think it was necessary to define the constant of integration right here, since it is defined later, so I removed this. I also added some clarifying phrases as well for ease of understanding. Kcarr51 (talk) 15:33, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Constants in Calculus

I added a limit example at the end of this section. Kcarr51 (talk) 15:46, 9 November 2021 (UTC)