Talk:Norman Wildberger

I just created this article, because Wildberger clearly needed an article, as he has made an important contribution to mathematics with his new subject known as "rational trigonometry."Dratman (talk) 01:56, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think there have been changes since the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Norman J. Wildberger discussion. Wildberger is known for his ultrafinitist views as well as rational trigonometry. While I personally disagree with nearly all of Wildberger's views, it is my sincere belief that he is an important figure in the modern philosophy of math debate, if not the most notable proponent of ultrafinitism. If other Wikipedians disagree, then I suppose this content can be merged into the pages for ultrafinitism and rational trigonometry. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 16:47, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I feel sure that WP:ONEEVENT no longer applies, because even if Wildberger was only known for his ideas on rational trigonometry, there have now been several distinct events associated with this idea, including the introduction of it and the Plimpton article. In the deletion discussion it was also mentioned that Wildberger is not highly cited. I do not know how many citations Wildberger had in 2009, but now Google Scholar lists 1259. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 18:54, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted the re-creation of this article. The newly created version was very far from being ready for mainspace. It may well be true that Wildberger "is known for his ultrafinitist views as well as rational trigonometry", as Mathwriter2718 asserts, or for that matter that he is known for his promotionalism, but to say any such thing in an article we need published independent secondary sources saying so. The version as created was sourced only to primary sources by Wildberger and to YouTube videos. This is unacceptable and if this were a new article rather than a re-creation of a very old article I think it would have been a prime candidate for immediate draftification. I believe his work on rational trigonometry is notable but adequately covered in the article about his book; WP:BIO1E suggests that unless we can find notability for something beyond that we should not need a separate biography. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:45, 28 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to review my changes and this talk discussion. I read more on some of the policies and I see that I did not provide independent secondary sources justifying that Wildberger is known his ultrafinitist views as I should have. I did provide several secondary sources (news articles) to back up claims I made in the article about rational trigonometry, although not about ultrafinitism. I am not entirely sure what kind of evidence is desired, but here are a few sources:

A 2021 Quanta Magazine article about Banach-Tarski includes Wildberger as their example of a critic of ZFC.^[1]
A 2013 New Scientist article about finitism includes arguments from him in favor of finitism.^[2]
The 2017 Scientific American article about Wildberger's Plimpton paper discusses his ultrafinitism.^[3]
He was interviewed for Steve Patterson's podcast about infinity skepticism.^[4]

WP:BIO1E says that we should not make biographies about people who merely played a major role in one minor event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_is_one_event suggests that an event can last "multiple days". I am a novice to Wikipedia editing, and I do not understand fully how the one event policy works. But from what I have seen, it seems like the introduction of rational trigonometry in 2005 and the Plimpton article in 2017 (and the subsequent media coverage about Plimpton, see the references in my reverted revision) are two different events.

Please let me know whether you believe this is sufficient evidence to keep a revised version of my edits. If not, I will consider merging modified versions of the content into ultrafinitism and rational trigonometry. Mathwriter2718 (talk) 23:29, 29 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Quanta article says nothing about Wildberger himself beyond that he is retired. I do not have access to the New Scientist article beyond the quote in the second sentence, which again does not say that he is known as an ultrafinitist (nor really anything else about him); is there more detail later? The Scientific American article would possibly be valid as a source for him being a self-promoter, and for his work on rational trigonometry not being innovative. The Steve Patterson link does not appear to be a reliable source. If you are trying to build a WP:GNG-based argument for notability for Wildberger, none of this counts for much. (It would be more typical to base notability on WP:PROF but I also don't see the case for that.) —David Eppstein (talk) 00:09, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, if you are trying to argue that he has made significant contributions to ultrafinitism (rather than merely that he takes it as a position), what are those contributions? His name is not mentioned in our ultrafinitism article, nor in Cherubin and Mannucci's "A very short history of ultrafinitism". In fact searching Google scholar for the combination of ultrafinitism and Wildberger found nothing. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:20, 30 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[1] ttps://www.quantamagazine.org/how-a-mathematical-paradox-allows-infinite-cloning-20210826/

[2] ttps://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929300-700-infinitys-end-time-to-ditch-the-never-ending-story/

[3] ttps://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/dont-fall-for-babylonian-trigonometry-hype/

[4] ttps://steve-patterson.com/ep-48-skepticism-infinity-mathematics-dr-norman-wildberger/

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