Talk:Mathematical diagram

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Introduction.[edit]

I am removing sentence that is misleading. Perhaps it fell out of fashion to use a diagram as a proof (but the "proof without words" section of the MAA mothly lends some counter examples) but diagrams themselves have never fallen out of fashion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thenub314 (talk • contribs) 10:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We are talking about the next sentence:
With the development of Frege's predicate calculus and Hilbert's formalization of mathematics end 19th century, according to Zenon Kulpa (2004), diagrams went out of fashion and where considered bad practice until recently.
Which I derived from a chapter on "Diagrams in mathematics" by Zenon Kulpa, in Andrea Asperti (2004) Mathematical Knowledge Management: Third International Conference, MKM 2004, page 193. Kulpa explains here:
However, with the invention of predicate calculus by Frege's and the birth of Hilbert's program of formalization of mathematics at the end XIXth century, diagrams went out of fashion as a respectable research tool in mathematics and their use is considered a bad practice and actively discouraged till now. The trend went so far that some mathematicians (like Dieudonne, a member of the Bourbaki team) wrote books about geometry without a single diagrams and were proud of that. The fashion persisted dispite the fact that many prominent mathematicians admitted the use of visual images and diagrammatic aids in their research. Diagrams were accepted at most as a secondairy illustration device, suitable as an educational tool for uninitiated...
Now probably I didn't cite quite right. I should have added "as a respectable research tool in mathematics" and even added some of the example and futher text..!? -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 13:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that Kulpa has taken a lot of pseudo-history without a grain of salt. I don't even know of any well-known pseudo histories that would even take it that far. The Bourbaki view was always seen as an extreme and even during their active period, there was a lot of public opposition to their approach and philosophy by famous mathematicians. To cite that the use of "diagrams was considered a bad practice and actively discouraged" just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially when you consider that the definition of diagram being used here covers items like commutative diagrams which are frequently used by Bourbaki types. Or to put it another way, different fields of mathematics all have their own philosophies about appropriate uses of illustration. Kulpa's claims are perphaps plausible for certain areas but not for other mainstream areas. It is certainly the case that in topology, throughout the last century, practitioners frequently employ illustrative pictures galore, and this can be seen particularly in the works of more than a handful of Fields Medal winning topologists.. To say that these Fields Medalists' practices were somehow peculiar or not representative of a larger community doesn't make a whole lot of sense. --C S (talk) 14:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another way of seeing how ludicrous this type of claim is, is to take a look at issues of prestigious journals like the Annals of Mathematics. There are plenty of illustrations in it of a variety of styles throughout its history, and there are no indications there was any reduction because of influences like Bourbaki. Quite the contrary! The Annals published many of the fundamental papers in geometric topology in the 50s and 60s, and that period saw an increase in very elaborate topological pictures in papers. --C S (talk) 14:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dispute about diagrammatic reasoning study language[edit]

I have an issue with this sentence: "Only recently a new study emerged called Diagrammatics: the study of diagrammatic representation and diagrammatic reasoning, concerns the use of diagrams in information processing and communication by humans."

To me it seems like a blatant advertisement for this study. And the sentence needs to be re-worded or re-clarified as to the phrase "only recently". Are we talking recently in the realm of mathematics' existence or within the past few years? The identification, research, and analysis of visual learning has been going on for quite some time now.

Mojodaddy (Talk) 04:20, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, If you have a better quote from a reliable source, be my guest. The source of that sentence is allready given, so it doesn't make sense to add that fact-tag. So I removed it again. In the particular sentence Zenon Kulpa is talking about (his) study called "Diagrammatics". Now you could for example replace the whole sentence by a quote about diagrammatic reasoning in general. I personaly don't have any problems with Zenon Kulpa. I think he is one of the very few scientists, who is given some overview in this matter. If you could give me some alternatives here, please do. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My argument is not about whether this study exists or what it is about. My argument is about the "Only recently" part of the sentence. The cited reference does not provide that no studies occurred prior to it, and, in fact, it itself references several related prior documents from the 1900s. Therefore, the word "Only" should be removed. Or, alternatively, the sentence may be pulling material from reference #3 and a cross reference is in order. Furthermore, the statement should be generalized to encompass all studies relating to diagrammatic reasoning. Something like "Recently, studies of diagrammatic reasoning have been initiated by mathematicians." The cited reference does evidence this and it leaves the door open that other similar studies may be occurring or have occurred, because, again, the cited reference does not provide support that no other studies are occurring in this field. Unless this one particular study is notable, I don't see the need to mention it specifically. Mojodaddy (talk) 11:25, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. I have removed the whole sentence for now:
Only recently a new study emerged called Diagrammatics: the study of diagrammatic representation and diagrammatic reasoning, concerns the use of diagrams in information processing and communication by humans.<ref>[http://www.ippt.gov.pl/~zkulpa/diagrams/ Diagrammatics: The art of thinking with diagrams] by Zenon Kulpa. Retrieved 1 September 2008.</ref>
I can't seem to link this quote to content of the current webpage. Also a statement like "Recently, studies of diagrammatic reasoning have been initiated by mathematicians." should be referenced. If I find something better, I will re-add something here. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 12:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright problems[edit]

To facilitate copyright cleanup, I am indicating some of the sources I have found. I had already removed text copied from this product description before recognizing the extent of issues. Some of this material has been revised by contributors, but enough remains that this article cannot remain published until it is rewritten. I will detail specific issues below. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Overview subsection[edit]

In this series of edits text was introduced verbatim or nearly verbatim from the following sources:

  • [1] (opening sentence)
  • [2] & [3] (next passage; see replication at L. Magnani, 2005 & 2006)
  • [4], [5] & [6], the next bit; see Zulpa)
  • [7]; see Asperti
  • [8]; Zulpa

History subsection[edit]

  • See [9]. Material beginning with "He argues that...." and extending to "...directly constructable from the text alone" is substantially duplicated in the article.
  • The bit on Oresme is not a copyright infringement, as the source is PD: [10].
  • From the words "By the 16th century....", there is copying from the Overview section of [11]. This picks up in the next paragraph.
  • In the middle, there is a sentence previously published in this thesis.

Mathematical diagram topics,[edit]

  • The first sentence is copied from [12]
  • I believe that the rest of this section is probably copied from other Wikipedia articles. If so, these will require attribution to comply with licensing reuse terms set out at WP:C.
  • Beginning beneath the definition set, the paragraph comes from [13].
  • The paragraph beginning "Diagrams are a kind of analogical knowledge representation..." is taken from [14], as are the advantages.

Specific types of mathematic diagrams[edit]

  • Given the results of google search, much of this material seems to have been taken from other Wikipedia articles. If this is so, as above, the original needs to be identified and attribution provided in accordance with reuse. While reusing such material is also a copyright problem, I have not blanked this since I do not see infringement on external sources and such situations are easily remedied with attribution.

Applications[edit]

Unfortunately, with copying this extensive, leaving the material intact for cleanup is not a valid option. I realize that this article is very important to the project. I will seek assistance at the project page with bringing this article into compliance with WP:C so that material need not remain blanked for long. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:03, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, MRG. It seems to me those five sections have to be rewritten completely, based on the data from those 14 sources (previously) present. It also seems to me, at the moment since the text is removed, there is no longer a copy vio. Both the chapter headings (overview + application) and those copy-vio templates can be removed...!? and the problem is solved here for now. Or am I missing something here...!? -- Mdd (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of the tags was to give contributors an opportunity to write replacement text. Since the material hasn't been rewritten, I've gone ahead and removed the tags and the sections that are otherwise empty without them. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 01:28, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand correctly those tags can be removed, so I did. Please correct me if I am wrong. -- Mdd (talk) 01:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Copied and pasted from various Wikipedia articles[edit]

This article or section appears to have been copied and pasted from various Wikipedia articles, possibly in violation of a copyright. This has occurred Sept 2008, when this article was created by me.

I apologize for all inconvenience I have caused here, see also here. If you would like to assist in improving this article, please let me know. I can use all the help I can get. Thank you.

-- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:20, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Copy-paste registration[edit]

This article is started as a draft version on User:Mdd/Mathematical diagram. This copy-paste registration there:

-- Mdd (talk) 00:00, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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