# Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Mathematics

WikiProject Manual of Style
This page falls within the scope of WikiProject Manual of Style, a drive to identify and address contradictions and redundancies, improve language, and coordinate the pages that form the MoS guidelines.

## Zero ring

I would like to add a line to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Terminology conventions: "The ring with one element is called the zero ring." I believe that this is the most common name for it in the mathematical literature, so ideally Wikipedia should reflect this. Any objections? Ebony Jackson (talk) 01:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

## Rng vs. pseudo-ring

I would like to add the convention that a non-unital ring is called a rng. Currently, the Wikipedia page for this concept is called pseudo-ring even though some of its text refers to "rng". After investigating a little, my feeling is that "pseudo-ring" was a terminological invention of Bourbaki that mathematicians rarely use (outside of Wikipedia). Worse, the term "pseudo-ring" has been used to mean at least three different concepts: see Patterson, "The Jacobson radical of a pseudo-ring", Math. Z. 89 (1965), 348–364 and Natarajan, "Rings with generalised distributive laws", J. Indian Math. Soc. (N.S.) 28 (1964), 1–6 for the other two. "Rng" is a little more common, and has only one mathematical meaning, as far as I know. If "pseudo-ring" had one meaning, then I would want to make it a redirect to rng, but perhaps it should be a disambiguation page instead? Suggestions would be welcome. Ebony Jackson (talk) 02:12, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I endorse all of this, with the caveat that rings of operators should not be assumed to be unital. Ozob (talk) 05:37, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
OK, pseudo-ring has been moved to rng, or more precisely to rng (algebra) because there is a disambiguation page (that's the page that used to be a redirect to pseudo-ring). Ebony Jackson (talk) 06:19, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

### There is an exception for rings of operators, such as * algebras

This appears in the same section about rings. A *-algebra is a complex vector space, not a (something) of operators anywhere. May I delete it? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 13:59, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

No, you may not. A *-algebra is an algebra with something that looks like complex conjugation. The most prominent examples of these are C*-algebras. Despite their abstract definition, every commutative C*-algebra is isomorphic to C0(X), the space of complex valued continuous functions vanishing at infinity on some topological space X. This theorem would not hold if *-algebras were required to have units: The unit ought to be the function which is identically one, but that function doesn't vanish at infinity unless X is compact. Ozob (talk) 14:50, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

## No infoboxes for geometry pages?

I don't know if this is the right discussion page to address this, but I have been noticing the strange lack of infoboxes at the top of a lot of articles about distinct geometrical bodies. Especially I would like something with a headline to contain the first visual representation for the article, and then if possible the simplest form of the equation of the object and/or that which requires the least mathematical preknowledge (say slope-intercept or standard form for Line (geometry) and ax + by + cz = d for Plane (geometry)). Then maybe some historical data, if available. I see a lot of different infoboxes spread around in some part of series of articles (Category:Mathematics_templates), but nothing unified. And a lot of the most basic articles haven't got any. I think to get this kind of overview at the start would help the average math interested person immensely. Is this a thing that is already being worked on? Cheers --Anjoe (talk) 18:36, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

So far as I know, this is not already being worked on. I also have doubts about its utility. The first visual representation for the article probably ought to be larger than can comfortably fit in an infobox. There is often not a simplest or best equation for an object, and sometimes simpler equations require additional background or context. That aside, it may be that I'm on the wrong track here, and that good things can be done with infoboxes. If you're interested, give it a try! Ozob (talk) 04:33, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

## Manual of Style for Geometry pages

Could there be a seperate "Manual of style" for Geometry pages

Many geometry articles are much to much about analytic or higher dimensional Geometry, and would hope that having a seperate Manual of style for Geometry would help to get it right (or at least have a place to link to when the article doesn't follow the style) For many laypeople geometry is about geometrical construction, while (real? professional?) geometers are much more about algebraic, higher dimensional or differentional geometry

I would suggest that after the introduction there is a part

- explanation in plane geometry or 3 dimensional geometry where possible.

- an drawing on the subject (if possible)

- analytic geometrical parts (and all the other specialised geometry parts that look more algebra than geometry) should be in a seperate (last?) section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.230.37 (talk) 14:38, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

## Default vs. \textstyle: example shows no differences, \scriptstyle unexplained, outdated documentation referenced

With FireFox 26.0 and Wikipedia.Preferences.Appearance.Math=MathJax, I see the examples illustrating the value of \textstyle in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics#Using_LaTeX_markup as identical, with limits after the sigma. I tried adding \scriptstyle to the example, but it did not change. In Help:Displaying_a_formula I found no explanation of these elements. I searched for them in Wikipedia: and MediaWiki:, but found no documentation (but a great deal of what in this situation was noise) in the first 100 hits, though I did find “\displaystyle” – which helps, but adds to the confusion – (and “:$”) in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Typography. I suspect that the introduction of MathJax has something to do with all this. In case the page changes, the examples of rendering – which I see as identical with the exception of \displaystyle — are: • Code: “[itex]\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/n^2 = \pi^2/6$
• Default (no \*style): $\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/n^2 = \pi^2/6$
• With \textstyle: $\textstyle\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/n^2 = \pi^2/6$
• With \scriptstyle: $\scriptstyle\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/n^2 = \pi^2/6$
• With \displaystyle: $\displaystyle\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/n^2 = \pi^2/6$
• With :[itex]: :$\sum_{n=1}^\infty 1/n^2 = \pi^2/6$

The lead of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics refers to meta:Help:Formula, which says it is outdated and looks rather like Help:Displaying_a_formula, though it does not refer to that.

It would be helpful if someone (or ones) could:

• Document these markup elements (and the default) in Help:Displaying_a_formula, including the effect any settings may have.
• Also document :[itex], if that is supported (but say it is redundant if it is default).
• Update Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics#Using_LaTeX_markup so that the examples render differently and/or warn that they depend on settings and refer to the added documentation section for details.
• If \scriptstyle is obsolete, then this should be explained in both places.
• If Help:Displaying_a_formula supersedes meta:Help:Formula, then:
1. Refer to it from the outdated page,
2. Merge the outdated page to the new page — this could be done in steps, replacing sections by references to the up to date version.

And if experts do not know, then state that honestly in the documentation! PJTraill (talk) 22:37, 9 February 2014 (UTC)