User talk:Sodin

Welcome!

Hello, Sodin, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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And don't forget, the edit summary is your friend. :) – Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi! You can create automatic redirects to exisitng articles simply by typing #REDIRECT [[Subject]] and, of course, substituting "Subject" with the name of the source article. - Lucky 6.9 20:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for edit summary

When editing an article on Wikipedia there is a small field labeled "Edit summary" under the main edit-box. It looks like this:

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M. Riesz extension theorem

Hi. Thanks for the new M. Riesz extension theorem. I have a few questions though. I don't think the conditions of the theorem are well-formulated. Is it enough for E to be a linear space? It should have some kind of norm, or be at least locally convex, no? Otherwise, do you mean by $E^{*}$ just the space of all linear functionals on E without continuity? Thanks. You can reply here. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I thought about it a bit; it is correct as written (with E^ast = Hom_R (E, R)). If you have additional structure - say, topology on E - it is easy to see that any positive functional is reasonable (say, Borel measurable), so the extension you get is not some set-theoretic monster. Sodin 16:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Welcome!

If you are interested in Russia-related themes, you may want to check out the Russia Portal, particularly the Portal:Russia/New article announcements and Portal:Russia/Russia-related Wikipedia notice board. You may even want to add these boards to your watchlist.

Again, welcome! Alex Bakharev 10:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Jackson inequality

the discussion moved to Talk:Jackson's inequality Sodin 16:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia conventions

Hello. Some of your edits prompt these tips:

• The initial sentence of an article should be a complete sentence, not a dictionary-style definition.
• The title word or title phrase should be bolded at its first appearance, usually in or near the first sentence.
• "Displayed" (as opposed to inline) TeX is usually indented by an initial colon (invisible to the reader), thus:

$\int _{-\infty }^{\infty }1\,dx$

(in this case, it has to be indented by two initial colons because the paragraph is already indented by the bullet.

• When you create a new article about an inequality, could you add it to the list of inequalities?

Michael Hardy 23:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for the many new articles you are creating. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Notation for probabilities, etc.

Hi, Sasha!

Thanks for your note about $\mathbb {P}$ and $\mathbb {E}$. I must be getting old. I went back through all my textbooks (and journals, etc.) on probability and statistics, and I could not find a single instance of these outline-style characters to represent either a probability or an expected value.

I guess the notation has changed in the 30+ years I've worked with probability and statistics. I'll take a look around and see if I can't get up to speed, but I'm fairly sure the notation you used at Paley-Zygmund inequality is an innovation since 1975, or so. Not that that's a big deal ... I mainly felt confused by the inequality the way it was written, and a pair of parentheses was missing, so I just altered it quite a bit while I was in there. Best! DavidCBryant 15:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Bernstein inequalities

Certainly, I would support the creation of a Category:Probabilistic inequalities and the moving of such inequalities to that category. Please ask if you need help creating the new category. By the way, I noticed you signed your message [[Sodin|Sasha]]; in the future, you probably want to use [[User:Sodin|Sasha]]. Btyner (talk) 03:25, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

November 2008

Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, such as in User talk:Ioeth, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you. Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 20:40, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Talkback!

Ioeth _{(talk contribs friendly)} 20:48, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Re: Fedor Nazarov

Hi, the article was deleted since it didn't assert his notability in any way. The full text of the article was "Fedor Nazarov is a Professor of Mathematics in Michigan State University." and an external link to a page on msu's website. If you want to start a real article about him, go right ahead. - Bobet 17:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

• Dear Sodin, I have nothing against Feodor/Fedya Nazarov, but the way the article was presented is simply not enough. You have to pretty much prove to other Wikipedians that the person is notable by adding references to various publications/sources where the fact of him being a mathematical genius is asserted. References to his personal web page or his university don't count. KNewman (talk) 14:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Hi there, Sasha! Well, to tell you the truth, I don't consider myself the best authority in cases like this one. The problem with me is that I may seem quite partial when it comes to notability. You see, the Salem Prize may be a notable award per se, but only a certain category of people are aware of its existence. It's kind of like the Kurchatov Medal - the nuclear physicists around the globe have most likely heard of it, but the rest of us mortals may have no idea about it. I am not trying to diminish Fedor Nazarov's achievements in the field of mathematics, but the article on him in its present state reminds of the so called vanity page (similar to the notability thing), like this Nazarov teaches in your own class and you admire the guy so much that you think he deserves a place in WP, or as if he wrote this article himself to gain importance. Please, expand the article and provide different sources to support Nazarov's notability. Please, understand that I mean no offense. Happy editing! KNewman (talk) 06:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: Random matrix

I replied on my talk page. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:29, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Jean Ginibre

The article Jean Ginibre has been proposed for deletion because under Wikipedia policy, all biographies of living persons created after March 18, 2010, must have at least one source that directly supports material in the article.

If you created the article, please don't take offense. Instead, consider improving the article. For help on inserting references, see Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners or ask at Wikipedia:Help desk. Once you have provided at least one reliable source, you may remove the {{prod blp}} tag. Please do not remove the tag unless the article is sourced. If you cannot provide such a source within ten days, the article may be deleted, but you can request that it be undeleted when you are ready to add one. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 19:17, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Re

Thanks. That's what the notability tag exists for; to alert editors that a bit more notability is needed. Being a professor is an inherent claim to notability; I always try to give those articles at least a month before doing anything else to them. Since I've found I'm not very good at finding information on academics, I leave that to others who can; your efforts are appreciated. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Asymptotic geometric analysis deletion

Hi Sodin, the only content on the page was:

{{catmore}}
[[Category:Banach spaces]]

However, the content was then blanked, and as such, the page was deleted as WP:CSD#G7, or "author requests deletion", as the blanking of a page by its creator is interpreted as a request to delete the page (of course, the author has to be pretty much the only editor of the page in order to meet this criterion). Hope this helps. Best. Acalamari 09:29, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

If you can create it with better content, go ahead. :) Acalamari 14:50, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

SpringerEOM

Thanks for the heads up. I think I fixed everything. Let me know if I missed something. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:46, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Talkback!

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^Avic_ennasis @ 19:35, 11 Elul 5771 / 19:35, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

TB: CfD: Mathematical theorems with German names

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Request for feedback

Hi Sasha. I hope you don't mind me messaging you here, not the RfC, because the RfC isn't really the right place for this. Similarly to my request at Geometry guy's talk page, I would genuinely like to know if you believe I could have handled the situation differently. I have been over every interaction in my head a few times and the only change I can see that I could have made was to be more bold on the ANI back in August and close it. I was a new admin then and I don't regret not being bold. I've always remained calm and amicable, treating KW with respect, attempted to discussing things with him directly, accepted any reasonable terms he requested to make things easier for him.

My only other option that I can see was to turn a blind eye - something I was unwilling to do because I see KW's pattern of edits as ones that would cause a hostile editing environment, which in turn would drive editors away. I didn't want to drive KW from the encyclopedia, I've tried to control the RfC as much as I could - but I would love to hear what suggestions you might have that I could have done differently. Worm^TT · (talk) 19:42, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Worm,

thanks, I will think a bit and reply (in the evening or tomorrow morning).

Sasha (talk) 21:56, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

done (privately). Sasha (talk) 23:46, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Sasha, I've replied, and would certainly like to discuss further. Worm^TT · (talk) 12:35, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Bates-Young

Have you seen Goodvac's note on my talk page, which was posted in your response to mine? He makes a couple of comments; one of them is a reminder that G1 is only for gibberish. Regardless of whether it's real or a hoax, a page doesn't qualify for G1 speedy deletion if the words themselves make sense; G1 is for pages such as

gonudfbgduongoduotuedbguodtubggfb fnouersn rnournodbugnorubg

Conversely, he suggests a {{db-g3}} tag, to have the page speedy deleted as a blatant hoax. This is not a blatant hoax, because a blatant hoax is one that anyone can see is false — I see no reason that this has to be false, so it shouldn't be tagged for G3 speedy deletion. Unless you have another speedy deletion criterion that's applicable (and I can't imagine one), you'll have to pursue a different deletion strategy: you could tag it with the PROD process, simply saying that this is made up, or you could go with a full AFD. Nyttend (talk) 12:40, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Esscher Transform listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Esscher Transform. Since you had some involvement with the Esscher Transform redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Sasha (talk) 05:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

This is funny since the editor is myself. Well... Sasha (talk) 05:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Pavoloch References

Hello. I'm Eislundo, the author of the page, "Pavoloch." Thank you for your suggestions. They were helpful, and I followed B and C to the letter. However, I have a question, about the references. I already referenced my information, by putting up the pages, from which I got my information. If there is another way of referencing, please contact me on my talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eislundo (talk • contribs) 17:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

My reply is at User talk:Eislundo.Sasha (talk) 00:27, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Autopatrolled

Hello, following a review of your contributions, I have enabled autopatrolled on your account. This does not affect your editing; rather, it just automatically marks any page you create as patrolled, benefiting new page patrollers. Please take note of the following points:

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If you have any questions about the permission, don't hesitate to ask me. Otherwise, happy editing! Reaper Eternal (talk) 20:37, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

thanks! Sasha (talk) 20:38, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

About the "Author" field in O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Sodin", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews

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Hi Sasha, I saw your message and Oleg's suggestion: well done! Thank you very much for your work: I would have given you more support, but presently I am experiencing a few working problems, so now I am just doing only maintenance work on Wikipedia. Again thank you. Daniele.tampieri (talk) 16:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification

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thanks, bot. Sasha (talk) 14:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Non-free images

Hi Sasha. Just a quick (and slightly belated) note about non-free images. They can only be used on pages for which there is a specific fair use rationale (FUR) for their use. This is required by item 10c of Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria - it is required, in particular, in order "to minimize legal exposure by limiting the amount of non-free content, using more narrowly defined criteria than apply under the fair use provisions in United States copyright law". It's true even of low-quality images where the copyright holder is unknown, like the photo of Stefan Banach. Not only can non-free images not be used on articles for which that image doesn't have a fair use rationale, but they also can't be used on project pages, user pages, and the Main Page. Thank you for keeping this important policy in mind. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:06, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Demiurge,

thanks! I did not know that, I will keep it in mind.

Could I stretch your friendliness a bit and ask you to have a look at the Image of Morduhai-Boltovskoi that I have uploaded here and check that the tags are OK?

Thank you very much,

Sasha (talk) 20:16, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, tricky one. First, I think the Date: field is wrong - it should be the date the photo was taken, not the date it was uploaded. I think! Of course, only an approximate date may be possible.

I think the current licensing tag you have on it is inadequate for Commons, since it states "You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States". For use in the article about Morduhai-Boltovskoi only, if a free image of him is not available, you could upload it to English Wikipedia under fair use, and provide a fair use rationale, similar to how the image of Banach is used only on the article about Banach.

Alternatively, it's possible the Morduhai-Boltovskoi image is public domain due to its age, but without an exact date or knowledge of who the original copyright holder was, it's very hard to say. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:27, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

thank you very much! I will move it to Eng. WP then. Sasha (talk) 21:06, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

could you please have a look now? I am confused with the tags. (once we shall sort this out, I will erase the one from WPCOmmons). Sasha (talk) 22:21, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Sasha and Demiurge1000,

I am sorry for forgetting about the free-content rule on the main page, which was my responsibility as a somewhat experienced DYK editor.

Thanks again to Demiurge1000 for catching my error.

Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 19:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Mikhail Kadets

Casliber (talk · contribs) 16:02, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Marcel Riesz

Casliber (talk · contribs) 16:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

	Happy new year!
	we wish you a merry christmas, and a happy new year! Pass a Method talk 19:00, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

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DYK nomination of Hans Rådström

Hello! Your submission of Hans Rådström at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Yoninah (talk) 21:29, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Please see new note on DYK template page. Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 22:15, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Hans Rådström

Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:32, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

TB: Shoshana Kamin

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Isidor Natanson

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Re:Ahlfors theory

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Again about Shoshana Kamin

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Hi Sasha: I moved there the whole discussion on my talk page and I wrote a message for you yesterday. Daniele.tampieri (talk) 15:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

My rollback, not edit of Pierre Fatou

You posted on my talk page that my edit was "not quite constructive." Firstly, it was a rollback not an edit, and secondly, I disagree. Adding the sentence "Fatou was in friendly relations with Paul Montel" in the middle of the article as it's own paragraph is: 1) Inappropriate 2) Vague and 3) Unsourced.

Plenty of vandalism on Wikipedia involves homophobic, sophomoric comments. What does it mean that he "was in friendly relations"? That he was gay? If he was a homosexual you say it directly and you cite reliable sources.

Thank you for ordering me to review what is and isn't vandalism. I am aware, thank you.

I personally would like you to review Wikipedia:EQ#Principles_of_Wikipedia_Etiquette and to read about passive aggressive statements like "Your edit was not quite constructive."

Yours, StewartNetAddict (talk) 00:13, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

replied at User talk:StewartNetAddict

My first complete communication failure here at wikipedia. I'll keep it here as a souvenir. Sasha (talk) 04:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Category:Theorems in mathematical physics

Hi,

Was just wondering what you think about the renaming of this category as you created it?

I suggest:

• Category:Mathematical physics theorems

I think this is a shorter and more explanatory name, it suggests the inclusion of physics theorems which are mathematical, without the questioning of whether the theorem is really apart of mathematical physics. I believe physicists are more likely to say theorems are mathematical theorems of physics, then theorems of mathematical physics. However my understanding is that they are essentially the same, perhaps you were being more specific on purpose? What do you think?

Brad7777 (talk) 17:32, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I do not have a strong opinion. "Mathematical physics" is a term acceptable both for mathematicians and physicists (although they attach slightly different meaning to it).

In general, the math-phys part of wiki is not in very good shape. Some of the basic articles (Ising model, Anderson localization, et cet.) are hardly readable, some are not very informative (e.g. mathematical physics), and others are just missing (e.g. Coulomb gas). It would be a nice project to improve it, and in particular think of a convenient category structure.

Sasha (talk) 18:38, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Categories

You said ..... Hello Melcombe,

you attributed to me an opinion which I do not hold. If you ask me whether I agree with all the edits of Brad7777, the answer is probably negative. However, I also do not think they are blatantly inappropriate. There is nothing inherently wrong with changing the category structure, and the word "consensus" is abused in the discussion (or so it seems to me).

I do not retract my statement that you cited, and I think it applies to your comment as well. In this thread, only the comments of Tkuvho and David Eppstein contributed to constructive discussion.

Best regards, Sasha (talk) 22:23, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The constructive criticism, shared by most others, is that the wholesale destructive restructuring of categories should stop. Melcombe (talk) 22:38, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Sikorav

Hi, Could you remove the silly tag at Sikorav? Apparently the creators of the page are no longer allowed to delete the speedy deletion tag. Tkuvho (talk) 14:42, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Now I live in EST, so the page was gone before I woke up. I have left a message to the admin that deleted it. Sasha (talk) 15:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Illyukhina and Petrukhina

Thanks for your message on my talk page. I have replied there. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:02, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hofer

Hi Sasha, If you create an article for Hofer, I will remove the speedy deletion tag. Tkuvho (talk) 18:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi,

I don't think finding references for Hofer will be a problem. E.g. this (general info), this (Ostrowski prize et cet), and this (membership in NAS).

I understand your frustration with Sikorav, but usually these problems do not happen when there are at least some secondary sources.

Best, Sasha (talk) 23:44, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

PS1 also, this for Inventiones.

PS2 link to related discussion at Carl's page

Sasha (talk) 23:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

update:

a) right now, Helmut Hofer is nominated for deletion, see here, whereas

b) Helmut Hofer (mathematician) is a short stub that you are welcome to expand.

Thanks to Carl for his help and advice!

Sasha (talk) 03:15, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If you created over 50 articles you may be eligible for "autopatrolled" status, which decreases the probability of frivolous "speedy delete" tags. I got it yesterday. Tkuvho (talk) 13:45, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

thanks. I got it a couple of months ago. Sasha (talk) 14:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Trifonov

I'm glad to see your additions. Generally, you might want to avoid numerous very short sentences/paragraphs. I've tightened them up. There are also some un-referenced details that need citations. Otherwise everything looks in order. If you want a couple of examples, take a look at Leonid Leonov or Vera Panova, although these are still works in progress. My personal best is probably Ivan Bunin, which is close to Featured Article quality. Feel free to send me more questions. INeverCry 21:39, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

An interesting reference about Soviet mathematicians

Hi Sasha,

while navigating the web in search of useful sources of information I found a series of four very interesting books: Математика в СССР is a series of four volumes describing the achievements of the Soviet mathematics from its birth in 1917 to 1967. The first two volumes deal with the period 1917–1957, the first one having the form of surveys describing research achievements while the second one (which I think is the most interesting for us) having the form of a "biobibliography", giving when possible the basic biographical information jointly with the bibliography of published works for each author who produced mathematical work in that period. I found there the basic biographical data of Aizik Isaakovich Vol'pert, including his exact birth date. The third and the fourth volumes are ever more interesting since they supplement the second one's "biobibliography" to the period 1958–1967: there are other biographical info on Vol'per (which I havent included in the entry yet) and also on Shoshana Kamin (not included yet even in this case), including their former Russian name (which you reported correctly). I think it is an uniquely useful secondary source for our entries about Soviet/Former URSS countries mathematicians. Daniele.tampieri (talk) 19:48, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Daniele,

thanks! I think I even had one or two of these volumes once, but I probably never opened them. The last volume was probably published in the 60's (after Shoshana Kamin became known but before she applied for emigration), am I right?. Do you have a hard copy, or is it somewhere online? Sasha (talk) 00:23, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Sasha,

Yes, you are right: tome I and II the last volume (I referred to it as the third and the fourth volume in the above description) where published respectively in 1969 and 1970. I found all the four publications online: try, and if you do not find 'em, drop me aline. :-D Daniele.tampieri (talk) 19:06, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

a remark

Hi Sasha,

I think we are all of good faith here: me, my contradictor, and all the people who emitted their opinion. That's not the question.

I think there is a deep problem that this issue has raised. It is being stated that verifiability of sources is for experts only. That restrains de facto the verifiability to the contributors of an article, and excludes the ordinary readers. I find the idea extremely unpleasant: for example, If I browse an article on a subject I know little about, and want to have a look in the sources, I would like to find the alleged information, and not have 1) to read the whole article 2) learn the theory, 3) reconstruct a reasoning, and 4) check it is valid. In this particular case, even with some understanding of the topic, and a good level in maths in general, I was unable to reconstruct the reasoning without the help of the writer of the paragraph: what if he had been on vacation, had left wikipedia, or had been hit by a bus? The wrong version of the formulas would have stayed in the article forever.

Yes, it is easy to miss a word like "twice". I would probably have made that mistake too. This is precisely because it is so easy to make mistakes, even for confirmed mathematicians, and for humans in general, that we should restrain from doing our own research. We should prevent ourselves from getting away from what is written on the paper at the original source. That's the best way of making sure such mistakes won't happen.

Since the result has not been published before, yes, it remains a theorem of the person who wrote it. Maybe the words "theorem of his own" were a bit harsh, but that's ultimately what it is. Bobkov et al. had no interest in bounding the eigenvalues, their focus was on the Poincaré-type constant. I am even wondering if this bounding of the eigenvalue is interesting at all, as it might be too loose an upper value. I tried with concrete examples and got the impression that the comparison was not bringing a lot of information. Ylloh himself emitted the suggestion that a better result could be reached by taking an other approach (which would make this whole discussion moot, BTW).

I'm not really taking things personally (well, I do, but I'd like to think there's more to it), I am having a problem with the rules of the English wikipedia. This exception to the interdiction of original work and to constraint of verifiability that is given to maths is unhealthy. Mathematics have their own "truth", which is called "demonstrability", and there are cases where it can collide with the general Wikipedian principles. This is one of these cases here. When you don't agree with the rules of a community, you leave it. I think it's what I have to do. --MathsPoetry (talk) 07:17, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I should not answer to your question on Talk:Expander graph about the definition, since I am trying to get away from the subject. Anyway:

I think you should not remove the introduction sentence, provided that it cannot be considered a definition. It is a good intuitive view of the subject.

Here is the definition I have put on the French Wikipedia:

The undirected graph $G=(V,E)$ is said to be an expander graph by a factor of $c>0$ if, for every subset $S$ of $V$ of cardinal $|S|\leq |V|/2$, we have $|\partial (S)|\geq c\cdot |S|$. The graph is also said to be $c$-expander.

And I give Goldreich et. al. as a source.

Also, I add as a note that:

Every finite connected graph is an expander graph, the interesting question being by how much.

A problem is there are variants to this definition:

• some say that c must be > 0, some not (but I think they imply it, because otherwise every graph would be an expander graph)
• some say "regular", others not (the fact is most of the interest in the literature is on the regular case, but the definition needs not be that restrictive)
• some put a constraint on the maximum degree of G, most don't (the idea behind that is that is no real merit in being highly connected for dense graphs; the maximum degree thing however is a bad idea, since it artificially excludes the star graph)

I hope that helps. --MathsPoetry (talk) 07:41, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

thanks! I have answered to the first part at your talk page, and I will read the second part carefully in the EST-evening. Sasha (talk) 14:40, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

A question about a Russian abbreviation

Hi Sasha, I apologize in advance for disturbing you on maybe trivial matters, but what exactly means the abbreviation "ст. науч. сотр.": is it something like "senior scientific researcher"? Do there exists an entry on Wikipedia about it? Best, Daniele.tampieri (talk) 18:47, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Daniele,

старший научный сотрудник in Russian wiki (ru:Научный_сотрудник) is inter-linked to senior research fellow, see Research_fellow#Russian_Federation. More or less the distinction is as follows:

• DSc, PhD (kandidat nauk) et cet. are scientific degrees
• professor, docent, et cet. are teaching positions at a university (normally, a professor is required to be a DSc, et cet)
• Ведущий научный сотрудник, старший научный сотрудник, научный сотрудник, младший научный сотрудник are research positions at non-teaching institutes (e.g. my grandfather is ведущий научный сотрудник).

I do not know whether there are English equivalents. But perhaps there are Italian ones? (or perhaps German or French ones, e.g. some kind of directeur de recherche/chargé de recherche, cf. French_National_Centre_for_Scientific_Research).

Best, Sasha (talk) 20:45, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Sasha, thank you very much. I found this abbreviation in several entries about Soviet (or Soviet born) mathematicians I found in the source I described you here. Best, Daniele.tampieri (talk) 14:01, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Smile!

A smile for you You’ve just received a random act of kindness! 66.87.0.48 (talk) 13:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Carlson's theorem

Hi,

I noticed that you made edits to Carlson's theorem to remove the two examples, and to make the notation more dense and complicated. In general, we like to keep mathematics articles accessible, and so like to keep the notation as simple and direct as possible; this tends to help beginners with understanding the concepts in the article. Thus, for example big-O notation is easier to read and understand than the more fussy and verbose statements about bounds and limits. Likewise, removing examples is also a bad idea. One of the examples that you removed had an edit summary of "mathematically incorrect", yet it is possibly the single most common actual application of Carlson's theorem. If you believe its incorrect, you should probably bring this up on the talk page; better yet, a quick review of the edit history would show that I'd created this content, and you could have asked me directly. Anyway, I restored the examples, I did not revert to the simpler big-O notation. linas (talk) 17:30, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I have left a comment at your talk page with my objections, and moved your comment there to keep the discussion at one place. Sasha (talk) 17:36, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Mandelstam

Hi, I was curious about your statement that Mandelstam was not a dissent. He was an outspoken critic of Stalin and was locked up for it. What is not dissenting about this? Span (talk) 21:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi,

whether or not Mandelstam was an critic of Stalin or not is a subject of a scholarly debate that lasts already 50 years. Every time I read the 1934 epigram, the "Verses to the Fallen Soldier", and the "Ode" one after another, I get convinced how hard is it to form an opinion.

Most of the scholars agree that Mandelstam was not an outspoken critic of Stalin; in particular, he read the epigram only to several close friends.

Regardless of all what I wrote above, the term dissident usually refers, in the context of the Soviet Union, to political activism in the Brezhnev era, long after Mandelstam's death. That's also what the article says: "...the term is most commonly applied to the dissidents of the post-Stalin era."

Best regards,

Sasha (talk) 22:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. The category is currently defined as "those who openly protested the political structure of the Soviet regime until multi-party liberalisation in the 1980s." That would encompass all dissents from 1922-1991. The article currently reads "Mandelstam's non-conformist, anti-establishment tendencies were not heavily disguised. He opposed the increasingly totalitarian government under Joseph Stalin." You may want to nuance that and add some referencing texts, or take the current position up on the article talk page. Contributions to Russian/Soviet poetry article would be very welcome. Best wishes for your weekend. Span (talk) 12:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

you see, right now he is one of the only ones in the list who is not from the Brezhnev period. All (or most of) the others are a much more homogeneous group. So I would rather change the def. of the category. Sasha (talk) 13:39, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Worth taking this up at WP:Categories for discussion to change to a tighter, more precise name, for those of us not in the know, and a new definition. Happy editing. Span (talk) 13:45, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

thanks! since there seem to be several discrepancies, I will think a bit what would I like to propose, and then perhaps bring it up there. Sasha (talk) 13:48, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

For now I have left a note at WP:human rights.

What I learned from the discussion there: a) indeed, other people (more precisely, one person that responded) think that dissident is a more general term than what I am used to; b) it remains a question whether Mandelstam was a dissident, but for this we need more sources.

If you do not object, I will leave everything as is for now (with O.M. listed in the category, but without the template {{Soviet dissidents}} -- mainly since the list starting with Amalrik, Bakay, et cet is of any help to readers of the O.M. article), and look for some scholarly sources before making further changes.

Best, Sasha (talk) 19:05, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I would say that dissent is a general noun and the group of Brezhnev dissidents you mention could almost certainly use their own category, if they are a homogeneous, recognisable group. 'Soviet Dissents' could sit beside that. I agree that certainly the question of Mandelstam's position needs more exploring in the article and more sourcing. It is usually the case that there is a nuanced position, he felt one way and changed his perspective etc. WP articles often get into knots trying to present one over-simplified position that editors then wrangle over. Not sure why that should be as we can present all sorts of different perspectives, but there you are. (This is why the category system seems to fail so often, as it panders to daft black and white angles). As you know, we work by presenting what the biographers argue, not by via our own conclusions. I presently know little about OM's political passions, though I did think he was pretty radical in his views; that was my sense from researching the article on Akhmatova. I would be delighted if you would follow up the OM/category question and clear up a little of the WP mud. Best wishes for your week. Span (talk) 23:19, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Haim Hefer and Rachel Haramati

Hi.

You edited the caption of the Infobox pic at Haim Hefer with the comment "Rachel Haramati is not the wife of Haim Hefer -- unless I am wrong, in which case please add a ref". Following up, I asked the original uploader of the pic. You were, indeed, correct. Per Hidro, "[Rachel] is a not a family relative, she is a TV producer". The fact that she shares the same surname as Hefer's wife is apparently coincidental. FYI. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 10:32, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the update! Sasha (talk) 13:30, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Stefan Banach

Hi, re this. If you could help with the Contributions section of that article (or any other section, but especially that one) that would be much appreciated. I took some relevant classes once but that was more than ten years ago and I haven't had much reason to utilize that stuff since, so whatever knowledge I had at one point has very much atrophied by now. But I would really like to bring the article up to WP:GA status and I think a thorough and accurate Contributions section is important to that end. Thanks!  Volunteer Marek  15:16, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I will do my best (it may be a bit slow since I am a bit busy right now) -- I would be very glad to see the Banach article GA-ed. Sasha (talk) 23:04, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Szörényi

Dear Sasha,

The article is definitely about the biochemist Szörényi. He was born in 1905 and worked in Budapest, Basel, and Berlin, before moving to the Soviet Union because of the spread of fascism. Between 1934 and 1950 he worked for the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences as head of the tissue protein research department of the Institute of Biochemistry and as head of the biochemistry department of the Institute of Microbiology. He mostly published about muscle physiology. In 1950 an Institute of Biochemistry was founded in Hungary (it was the predecessor of today's Institute of Enzymology), and Szörényi was called home to be its head. He arrived back in Hungary in 1950 and was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, then had to return to the Soviet Union, and an illness and other problems delayed his return to Hungary until 1953. During this time he was awarded the Stalin Prize; it is possible the Soviets wanted to keep him there.

In 1953 Szörényi arrived back and could finally head the Institute. As the Institute's main topic of research he chose the connection between the chemical structure of proteins and their specific biological functions. He and his fellow researchers published several studies, including the series called Comparative studies on d-glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenases. After 1955 Szörényi resigned from nearly all of his positions at the Academy due to his bad health, and devoted all his time to the Institute. Until 1956 none of their publications were published in Western countries, because of political reasons, but from 1957 several of them were published in journals like the Nature. Szörényi died in 1959 but his influence could still be felt in the following decades. The article doesn't say anything about his personal life, it doesn't mention his son, but the fact that Ronen moved to Budapest in 1953 matches the information in Szörényi's article. I hope this helps. Looks like we don't have an article on him in Hungarian Wikipedia either…

kind regards, – Alensha ^talk 07:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

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