Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive15

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Contents

Serre conjecture vs Serre's conjecture

Do we need a disambiguation page for these? Dmharvey 21:56, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

It would suffice to put a disambiguation link at the top of Serre conjecture, the Quillen-Suslin theorem being the only likely ambiguity. Having "Serre conjecture" and "Serre's conjecture" mean different things is asking for trouble. --KSmrqT 22:48, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Done. Septentrionalis 00:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

OK for the present, but Serre has dozens of conjectures, I believe. --Charles Matthews 10:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Rogue wikibots

This unicodification stuff made me realize that as just one editor I have very little control over what people decide to do with their bots on wikipedia. I asked the guy running User:Bluebot politely to stop proactively converting HTML entities to Unicode in math articles (and am waiting for a response), but if he doesn't comply what recourse do I have before all of the articles are converted anyway? Apparently he already refused Dysprosia's request.

It seems to me that bots could do a lot of damage in a very short amount of time (shorter than it would take to get the hosting user banned, for instance), and the damage might also be difficult to fix, probably requiring someone to write up a new bot just to fix the mess that the former bot created. How long will it be until someone truly malicious tries to write a bot that trashes (or worse, subtly introduces sign errors, for instance) in hundreds or thousands of articles? Are there any measures in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening? - Gauge 23:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

As a bot owner, whose bot has, on occasions, gone rogue, I can say that it does not take long for somebody to notice something odd and notify the bot owner and/or block the bot. Bots are fifth class citizens (in order: Jimbo/bureaucrats/admins/users/anons/bots), they are shown no mercy. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 00:04, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
If an ordinary user can block a bot, how is this done? When should one do it? JRSpriggs 10:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Blocking a bot, like any user, requires an admin. (There are several in this project: Oleg Alexandrov, Jitse Niesen, Lethe, Charles Matthews, Mindspillage, Fropuff, Michael Hardy, Mikkalai, Toby Bartels, The Anome, Isomorphic, Charles Stewart — did I miss anybody? — and me.) Paul August ☎ 15:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

TeX tips

While working through many pages with equations listed as acceptable to texvc but incorrect according to BlahTeX's parsing, the single most common issue seems to be a construction like

<math>x^\sqrt{2}</math>,

which must be changed to

<math>x^{\sqrt{2}}</math>.

This often arises with a subscript like

<math>x_\mbox{kind}</math>,

which must be changed to

<math>x_{\operatorname{kind}}</math>.

The corrected appearance is as follows.

x^{\sqrt{2}}
x_{\operatorname{kind}}

It would be helpful to keep this in mind when editing: Use the braces. --KSmrqT 02:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Since TeX rightly rejects x^\sqrt{2}, so texvc should also, hence texvc is being Bad. Dysprosia 02:26, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I am currently rewriting blahtex in python. Along the way I am reworking the parser. As a result it detects even more TeX incompatibilities than the current blahtex version. Dmharvey 02:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
You mean texvc problems? Dysprosia 02:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes. I mean that the new version of blahtex will produce error messages for certain inputs that texvc accepts and that the current version of blahtex accepts but for which TeX produces an error. Dmharvey 03:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure the BlahTeX developers are aware of this, but I want to point it out before people go out and mangle the TeX code in articles. The current BlahTeX sandbox seems to support <math>x_{\mbox{kind}}</math> as well, which has the semantic advantage that the word kind should get set as text. The MathML output seems to put operatorname into <mi> and mbox into <mtext>. I don't know the MathML standard, but I doubt these are guaranteed to be the same font. I think operatorname should be reserved for operators. According to the sandbox, BlahTeX also supports the AMS \text command for putting text into math formulas. CMummert 02:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Here's what I can tell you about blahtex's behaviour. The \mbox command is treated very similarly to \text. Pretty much the only difference is some fiddly stuff to do with text sizes. So in x_{\mbox y}, the "y" is the same size as the "x", but in x_{\text y}, the size of "y" is what you would expect a subscript to be. The arguments of \mbox and \text are both treated as text mode material; so for example whitespace is significant, and you can't use mathematical symbols. (This is also why <mtext> is used.) On the other hand, \operatorname takes a math mode argument; it's supposed to be used for things like \operatorname{sin} when you don't have a shortcut like \sin. Using \operatorname has spacing implications too. Compare the output of \operatorname{lim sup} X, \mbox{lim sup} X and \operatorname{lim\,sup} X. It's still got some bugs, for example \operatorname{sin}\limits_2 doesn't do the right thing, for reasons I don't yet completely understand. Dmharvey 03:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Assuming folks are reading this with the typical PNG output, here's a comparison of subscript options (with a deliberate error message):
input   output
<math>x_{\mbox{Hello world}}</math> x_{\mbox{Hello world}}\,\!
<math>x_{\text{Hello world}}</math> x_{\text{Hello world}}\,\!
<math>x_{\operatorname{Hello world}}</math> x_{\operatorname{Hello world}}\,\!
<math>x_{\operatorname{Hello\ world}}</math> x_{\operatorname{Hello\ world}}\,\!
<math>x_{\mathrm{Hello\ world}}</math> x_{\mathrm{Hello\ world}}\,\!
It should be obvious why I suggest "\operatorname"! (Or perhaps "\mathrm".)
Also keep in mind that the design of MathML mixes "presentation" and "semantics" in peculiar fashion. The distinction between <mi> and <mo> is named "identifier" versus "operator", but it's hard to know what that really means. --KSmrqT 04:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Possibly <math>x_{\mathrm{Hello\ world}}</math>, which gives x_{\mathrm{Hello\ world}} would be acceptable too.--LutzL 10:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC) || other possibilities: bold face x_{\mathbf{Hello\ world}}, sans serif x_{\mathsf{Hello\ world}}, italics x_{\mathit{Hello\ world}}--LutzL 06:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Worth noting. I've added it to the table. --KSmrqT 19:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that neither \operatorname nor \mathrm is the right font for textual identifiers; it is a shame that texvc only accepts operatorname. It looks like there is nothing that can be done until if and when BlahTeX is implemented. Then <math>x_{\text{Hello world}}</math> will work. CMummert 12:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're hoping for as the "right font". Within MathML I believe it could be inherited from the surrounding document, giving a sans-serif font like Arial. Within TeX, that's not going to happen. And even if that's fixed, we already have a mix of fonts for variables, serif within TeX and sans serif in wiki markup.
I remind you that, although it does not choke BlahTeX, usage like
<math>x_{Hello world}</math>, producing x_{Hello world}\,\!
is still rampant. --KSmrqT 19:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Boy do I hate that, using words and text in variable-mode. I see Diff(M) a lot for diffeomorphism group, hom(a,b) for hom-sets, etc. -lethe talk + 18:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Mathematics Templates

I'm not that good at creating/organizing templates, but I'd like to throw out the idea that using templates in mathematics-related articles would be quite helpful/unifying. There could be an overall Template:Mathematics which includes every topic from elementary algebra to knot theory; we could also make individual topic-related templates such as Template:Calculus. So far as I can see, there are currently very few mathematics templates, with apparently only one in and a handful in. 66.229.182.113 09:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

For my part, I don't like linkfests or find them helpful; we had some a while ago, and deleted them after consideration as random collections of articles. Septentrionalis 18:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
The template Template:mathematics-footer may already provide what you're looking for. -lethe talk + 18:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Septentrionalis, one should keep templates small and use them very sparingly. Templates can be distracting linkfarms in many cases. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I am not sure but I think it may be useful to have infoboxes for theorems, inequalities, conjectures, lemmas, mathematicians. (Igny 21:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC))
I would strongly disagree with any of that. I don't quite understand what you mean by infoboxes, but from what I can tell they will just amount to more clutter. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I just would like to say that many people have infoboxes, see Abraham Lincoln, Isaac Newton, Friedrich Nietzsche (note the nice infobox the philosophers have), Blaise Pascal; but not so many mathematicians are with infoboxes, see Friedrich Bessel, Andrey Kolmogorov, Henri Poincare, Fermat etc. (Igny 02:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC))
I see. I thought infoboxes are some kind of glorified templates allowed to be transcluded on hundreds of pages. I agree now that they could be useful, although the danger of creating unnecessary clutter is still there. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:20, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Additive Group

Can someone look at Additive group and clean it up. It's marked as a disambiguation page. --Usgnus 18:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

And so it ought to be: it is a disambiguation page. It links to three different articles which are in three different branches of mathematics, and all of which could be the topic for additive group. If you mean Abelian group, written additively, go there. Septentrionalis 18:37, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
It's marked for disambiguation cleanup. --Usgnus 18:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh, so that means it doesn't conform to Wikipedia's disambiguation page norms. Well I'm not sure what those norms are. Perhaps this request should go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation instead, seems like more their cup of tea. -lethe talk + 18:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Yeah, I'm not sure what the problem is. I don't see a need for an article about additive groups. On the other hand, I might support redirecting additive group to abelian group, so long as the latter article had a segment about underlying additive groups and other additive group functors. -lethe talk + 18:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm asking for help here because the last time I tried to clean up a mathematics-related "disambiguation" page, I was scolded. --Usgnus 18:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Ha! Asking mathematicians to disambiguate is asking the fox to guard the chickens. We even have a little ritual phrase, "by abuse of notation", to cover some — but by no means all — of our wanton ways. Anyway, since you don't want to offend anyone who is passionate about one of the meanings as being "the right one", asking for participation in such edits is wise. --KSmrqT 20:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The {{disambig-cleanup}} tags are an unnecessary evil, a policing of format by editors who often don't understand the subject matter. The complaint here seems to be that each line of a dab page should link to an article for that meaning, if one exists, and ideally there should be no other links. I have revised the format; I trust that will do. Septentrionalis 20:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Huh? Did you miss to save your edit? It's still in the unwanted many-links-per-line format. --Pjacobi 21:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
No, I intentionally left some links, because those terms may not be clear to the dabber. I see the link to addition has been restored, which is probably unnecessary. Septentrionalis 02:19, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your help, Septentrionalis. --Usgnus 21:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm confused about these definitions, and currently none of the links point to anything about the first term additive in the definition. So from the article I can know that an additive group can be a group, ring, field, or functor, but nothing about additive apart from its and addititive group if we choose to call it such.
Consider a deliberately perverse example. Take the multiplicative group of non zero integers. Instead of writing × for the symbol write &plus;. Now by the first line this staisfies the definition for an additive group, even though it has a very different structure.
The mathworld article has a stricter definition for the first line, (identity must be called zero and the inverse written as -a) and is much more extensive. I'd suggest making the page a real article rather than a disambig. Either that or just redirect to group. --Salix alba (talk) 19:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
Point of detail: in your example, do you mean the integers, or the rationals? (The details of the answer will be different if the group is {-1,1} or the non-zero rationals). But the gist is the same: yes, I'd call that perverse; but I'd also call it an additive group. Septentrionalis 19:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I would support a redirect (but to abelian group, not to group). In fact, it used to be one. Charles Matthews changed it to a disambig. Maybe he can offer some arguments why we need that disambig. As for making it an article in its own right, I don't support that. There's nothing to say about additive groups that isn't actually a statement about abelian groups, right? -lethe talk + 19:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Probably my fault for scolding User:Usgnus. There have been cases where editors, who are not very good at math, have been marking various pages as needing merges or splits or disambiguation, etc. These show up on cleanup project pages, whereupon other editors, who know nothing at all about math, attempt to do a good deed, and perform the recommended split/merge. And make a mess, because the article should not have been tagged in the first place. I caught one such in progress and pseudoscalar, and posted some nastygrams recommending that this project be contacted first .. which is what Usgnus did. linas 03:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

new article: algebraic equation

I'm not sure the definition given is that widespread. Seems a bit too restrictive. Author gives Mathworld as a source. Please comment at Talk:Algebraic_equation. Dmharvey 20:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice double arrows

I just figured out how to do nice looking double arrows in texvc exact sequences. Here is a demo:

{\mathcal F}(U)\rightarrow\prod_i{\mathcal F}(U_i){{{} \atop \longrightarrow}\atop{\longrightarrow \atop {}}}\prod_{i,j}{\mathcal F}(U_i\cap U_j).

The point is to put some phantoms above the top arrow and below the bottom arrow which apparently forces the arrows to space more closely together. I also did a native TeX diagram for splitting lemma this way, using names for the arrows. I hope someone finds this useful. - Gauge 00:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course what you really want is this... Dmharvey 01:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that the character ⇉ looks too short and stubby in MathML compared to the png output. It doesn't rescale when I change the text size either. Maybe it's because I'm missing the Symbol font? I still haven't found a reasonable explanation of how to get Symbol to work on my Gentoo box. I successfully installed all of the others required for MathML. Running Firefox 1.5.0.4, of course. - Gauge 04:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like a font thing, but it might also be a problem with Firefox's scaling code. It knows how to stretch some operators but not all. Dmharvey 22:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Regular number up for deletion

Please comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Regular number. --Trovatore 16:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

That article was deleted, but there is a genuine (and different) concept here; so I wrote a new one. Weissstein got it wrong. If anyone insists on AfD'ing the new article, fine; we can discuss it there. Septentrionalis 21:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I think this one should be fine; I made a mistake in my MathSciNet search the first time and missed a few references to sexagesimal numbers, Babylonians, etc. There appear to be six articles (with only one by Sachs), which while not overwhelming, is probably more than enough, going by the usual standard. There are more or less the same number of hits for other definitions of regular numbers though, in number theory, group theory, etc. So it may be best to create a disambig page for "regular number". --Chan-Ho (Talk) 23:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
The Bernouilli-number definition I would put at regular prime; what are the others? But it may be simpler if we write Regular number (disambiguation) and then decide on what goes where. Septentrionalis 02:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
A regular number can refer to the order of a regular element of a finite reflection group; Springer is apparently the name here. Actually, looking up "Springer" and "Regular element" brings up a lot more hits; I imagine regular number is mentioned much more often in the actual articles, rather than in the MathSciNet reviews. Springer's 1974 article "Regular elements of finite reflection groups" already defines regular number in that context. There are also k-regular number fields; here, the usage may be different, but is similar enough to require some disambiguation in my opinion. There's also several other usages that appear in a MathSciNet search for "regular number", but it's hard to tell how common they are (as it shows up only if it's in the title or review). So it looks like there is some work to be done here. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 16:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Scalars

A proposal to merge Scalar has turned into a protracted discussion of whether or not the term 'scalar' means the same thing in different disciplines. See Talk:Scalar. --Smack (talk) 05:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Gosh Numbers

(copied from Portal talk:Mathematics)

Wikimathematicians, if you are interested, please help determine this afd discussion about Gosh Numbers. Thanks! Bwithh 04:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

AFD listings

The following articles have been listed at AFD and not picked up by the current activity 'bot:

Please contribute to the discussions. Uncle G 23:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC) The following articles have been listed at AFD and not picked up by the current activity 'bot:

Please contribute to the discussions. Uncle G 13:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

sextic equation

A microstub of dubious utility. AfD? -lethe talk + 06:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It was already (correctly IMO) changed to a redirect. However, alternatively, we could snatch [1] from PlanetMath if anyone can confirm the veridicity of the information. AdamSmithee 07:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin for admin

I nominated one of us, Arthur Rubin, for administrator. If you are familiar with Arthur's contributions, and would like to vote, see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Arthur Rubin. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I definitely will. RfA is the biggest popularity contest these days and it seems that scientists and mathematicians aren't very popular amongst the general public. See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Edgar181 to see what I mean - some people who do 2000 small edits and write 1 article get twice as many votes. Blnguyen | rant-line 04:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I disagree about scientists and mathematicians. It seems to me that most of them sail through RfA without hardly a sideways glance. -lethe talk + 22:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
In any event, Arthur Rubin was promoted to administrator a few minutes ago with a 99/2/3 final tally. CMummert 02:40, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Tokker and ...illions of redirects

He's created approximately 200 redirects from names of large numbers to Jonathan Bowers. Any chance a mathematically inclined admit could delete these, or at least automate the RfD script.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 05:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks to me like the page Jonathan Bowers is a candidate for deletion:
  • It has a lot of unsourced material which I doubt is verifiable
  • It is a biography of a non-notable person.
Also Bowers style acronym looks like original research. CMummert 12:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Good idea. I've alraedy summarily deleted the names of the large numbers and the notations for creating large numbers from the article, as naming things and re-creating notations are not notable unless the new notation catches on. I'm investigating whether the Polychoron family should be deleted as well, as being a neologism, not used in professional mathematics. (15 of the first 20 examples of the netscape search for "polychora" are Wikipedia, Bowers' site, or MathWorld. The other 5 may be from one of the other members of the Uniform Polychora Project. I've contacted a professional recreational mathematician named in one of the articles for further information.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
The word "polychoron" would not appear in classic Coxeter because it is more recent. We use 4-dimensional polytopes often enough that it is helpful to give them their own name. Both Johnson (of Johnson solids) and Olshevsky were students of Coxeter, which lends a certain amount of credibility to what they say. Here's the story of the name, as reported by Olshevsky on his web site:
  • POLYCHORON (plural: polychora) is my term for a four-dimensional polytope, analogous to polygon in two dimensions and polyhedron in three. The only other names for such a figure that I had seen in the literature, “polyhedroid” and “hypersolid,” seem uninspired and inappropriate, because they’re too close to terms for three-dimensional polytopes; the ending -oid connotes similarity or resemblance; and the prefix hyper- is badly overused. A four-dimensional polytope resembles a polyhedron no more than a polyhedron resembles a polygon, so it should have a similarly distinctive root following the poly-. The Greek root choros means “room,” “place,” or “space,” describing the three-dimensional polytopes, or cells, that make up the polychoron. In early versions of this website, I called such a figure a polychorema (plural: polychoremata), but Norman W. Johnson persuaded me of the benefits of the shortened form, and I changed this document everywhere accordingly.
Therefore "polychoron" is relatively new, but that doesn't mean it isn't also respectable. Remember that “polytope” itself was a neologism of Alicia Boole Stott before it was popularized by Coxeter. A possible contact to assess academic acceptance of the name might be computational geometry expert David Eppstein, a professor at UC Irvine famous for his Geometry Junkyard pages. Another academic contact might be Brown University professor Tom Banchoff, well known for his interest in things four-dimensional.
My impression is that although neologisms are rampant among enthusiasts, this term has gained traction and has been around long enough that it will probably persist. --KSmrqT 20:01, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Our article says that Coxeter uses polytope; unless there is some differentiation for polychoron, there is probably consensus against it. The images and facts should probably be salvaged. Septentrionalis 16:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
If polychoron is strictly dimension 4, that is the required difference. Septentrionalis 21:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Even if I were an admin (see the above nomination), I'd need help keeping up with these. Someone is creating separate articles for the sections I deleted from Jonathan Bowers, and creating more pieces. (Is there something I could put in my .js which would, with a single click, add an {{rfd}} to the above redirect, and add it to a list in a user subpage so I could copy the list to WP:RfD. This is would be tiring.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think those redirects are actually that bad. Having them makes it less likely that someone will create stub entries on those numbers. It's kind of like the redirects we have at names of large numbers, which otherwise people would create stub articles on those numbers. Voortle 17:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
If those redirects are original research, they should be deleted also. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:31, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Lord [2]. I suggest a massive speedy delete campain. Any comments on that? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Other names of large numbers dealt with this issue, and the decision was to delete back them. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, redirects to other names of large numbers should be deleted, as that page doesn't exist. However, redirects from -illion names are not bad, because they prevent someone from creating stub articles on these numbers. Voortle 17:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Redirects to other names of large numbers should be deleted, as that page shouldn't exist. Redirects to Bowers' names of large numbers are just as bad. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it would be any great loss to delete all of these. Paul August ☎ 17:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Nominate for deletion all Jonathan Bowers related pages?

Is Jonathan Bowers that important a person? To me he appears to be a crank, and not even notable at that. How about nominating for deletion his page and all his other stuff? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Anyone got a script? I think we need to delete most of the Polychoron pages, and the other people linked from Uniform Polychora Project. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I would agree with deleting the whole lot. I don't believe they enhance wikipedia at all. Madmath789 17:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Note that Oh Crap (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log) has created a malformed AfD for Jonathan Bowers and L. Craig Schoonmaker. Is there any way to separate them. (The issues are not related.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jonathan Bowers. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 18:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

STOP! First off lets look at the members of the Uniform Polychora Project among them was the late Norman Johnson a student of Coxeter, and perhaphs one of the most important recient figures in the field of polyhedra, having created the Johnson solids, and also the nicest way of classifying the uniform polyhedra List of uniform polyhedra by vertex figure (Johnson, N. W. Uniform Polytopes. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000). So Johnson then went onto study the four dimensional polyhedra and enlists the help of various amature mathematicians, Bowers being one of them. Bowers is responsible for discovering most of the uniform 4D polyhedra and as discoverer probably gets the naming rights. Bowers names are probably becoming the defacto standard for 4D uniform polyhedra, considerably more pratically useful than the long names (First due to Coxeter, modified by Wenninger and later by Johnson). So we have a group resposible for discovering most of the uniform 4D polytopes. So its run by amatures who don't bother to publish in maths journals. Well the whole field of polyhedra is very much dominated by the amature, the most read book on the subject is Wenninger polyhedra models and Wenninger is in an order of Monks, not a professional mathematician.
As for the array notation. I'm not sure but I think is is capable of representing larger numbers than the closest contender Conway chained arrow notation. In my book thats worth a page, published or not. This stuff is important as it has close links to transfinite cardinals, helps us get a feel for the true emensity of natural numbers and is also a good way to bring people into apreciating mathematics, a natural extension of the game of naming bigger and bigger numbers we all played as kids.
I'm less bother about the names of large numbers, although the largest finite number so far conceive by man, seems to be of some interest. Here I'd take a pragmatic approach, we will always be getting people adding these very large names. Theres two options, spend our lives reverting Names of large numbers or keep a seperate out of the way page for these numbers to appear.
To sum up Wikipedia isn't great because it's like the Britannica. The Britannica is great at being authoritative, edited, expensive, and monolithic. Wikipedia is great at being free, brawling, universal, and instantaneous. — Cory Doctorow --Salix alba (talk) 18:11, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I strongly object to wholesale deletion without closer scrutiny. As I noted above, the name "polychoron" was created jointly by Olshevsky and Johnson, both of whom worked and studied with Coxeter, and both of whom were involved in creating the Uniform Polychora Project. Partly we are confronting a problem of volume and organization: there are too many of these beasts! They can hardly all be well-known, it's a pain to enumerate them, it's a pain to name them, names are still in flux, and so on. Frankly, I doubt many people can name the convex regular polytopes in four-dimensional Euclidean space, or even recall how many there are — and these are surely notable. Or how about the Archimedean solids? Our page lists 13 of them, over half with more than two names! Please, ease off on that trigger finger; don't shoot first and ask questions later. I'd suggest that few polychora deserve a page of their own, and that we surely don't want to duplicate the content of the project; but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I'd also suggest it would be absurd to delete the page on Norman Johnson. --KSmrqT 20:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not in a hurry to delete the polychora; I'm still researching. Mr. Bower and his pet names are not notable. Messers. Olsehvsky and Johnson may be more notable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
First, Norman Johnson is not late. He is alive and well.
About Jonathan Bowers and polychora, I am familiar with his work and have met him at a conference. I am also acquainted with Olshevsky, and know Wenninger and Johnson fairly well. Jonathan Bowers would be classified as an amateur mathematician, but has an astounding ability to work with four-dimenionsal figures. He can sketch three-dimensional cross-sections of polychora as easily as I might sketch, say, an equilateral triangle.... He is in close contact with Johnson, and Johnson is trying to incorporate Bowers's work into an upcoming book to be published by Cambridge University Press.
User Tom Ruen is also working on the Wikipedia pages on polychora.
This group is at the forefront of work on polychora. The project is to enumerate all uniform polychora in four dimensions. The problem of enumerating the 75 uniform polyhedra in three dimensions was solved only in the 20th century and has an interesting history. I think it is reasonable to assume that any work done in the area (in 4D) will be known to this group.
I only recently read about Bowers's work on naming large numbers. I think that subject should be discussed independently of his work on polychora.
I would argue that Jonathan's work is legitimate, even though he doesn't have appropriate 'credentials.' You might not wish his work in the Wikipedia for other reasons, but it is certainly not spurious. Vince Matsko 21:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
The work is legitimate. The classification theory seems notable enough; however his naming conventions (both for large numbers and for polytopes), any of the individual names that have articles, and the term "polychoron" may need to be removed, unless some legitimate geometer publishes those names. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Evolution of an article!

I am still fairly new to wikipedia, and I would really appreciate a view from a more experienced wikipedian about the evolution of the article Homogeneity. I have looked at the history of this article over the last year or so, and it seems to have 'evolved' in an extremely strange way. Please take a look at the Revision as of 07:02, 10 February 2006, and compare with the Revision as of 08:34, 10 July 2005. What on earth is going on here??? I am totally baffled by the latest incarnations of this article, but if more experienced editors tell me it is OK, I will accept their wisdom ... Madmath789 22:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks like an editor decided that there is basically only one meaning for "homogeneity", i.e. its use in statistics, and then proceeded accordingly. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 10:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, indeed, but I can't make much sense of the article as it stands, despite being a reasonably competent mathematician with a fair knowledge of probability and statistics! I am also a little suspicious of the possibility of OR here, as much of the editing of Homogeneity and a linked article Reliability (statistics) seems to have been done by David Cruise or by Cruise, and a couple of external links from Reliability (statistics) point to 'visualstatistics.net (e.g. The problem of negative reliabilities ) which seems to be authored by David J. Krus / Cruise scientific. I might be off-beam, but I am very suspicious of these articles. Madmath789 11:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes I agree the article does look very out of ballance. Go ahead and bring it back into line. --Salix alba (talk) 11:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Apart from the present article being whacky, I also think that Homogeneity (instead of Homogeneous) should be a disambiguation page, with Homogeneous a plain redirect to Homogeneity, and the statistical concept being handled at Homogeneity (statistics), which now redirects to Homoscedasticity, a different concept in statistics. --LambiamTalk 12:34, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Whacky indeed! I have spent some time trying to decide if this article homogeneity is genuine or totally off-the-wall. Can I make a plea: if anyone here knows more than I do about this sort of statistics, could you please advise as to the validity of this weird-looking stuff? Madmath789 16:56, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Greek letter proposal

Please see my proposal for Greek letters at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Conventions CMummert 23:27, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Computability Articles

JA: User:CMummert is making a mass of what appear to be improper page moves, renames, and reorgs to computability related articles. Could somebody please sort all that out and makes sure it's by the book? Thanks, Jon Awbrey 15:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

What I've seen looks legit to me. --CSTAR 16:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
I would be glad to explain, if anyone asked me; one the other hand, I am an expert in the area. For a while, there have been two articles: Computable function and Recursive function. These titles are synonyms in the current vernacular, and having them as separate articles is confusing. I have moved Recursive function to Mu-recursive function which is the consensus on what that article is actually about. I made Recursive function into a disambiguation page, which is important because there is a CS meaning for the term that was not reflected on the previous page. Then I chased almost all the things that linked to Recursive function. Many of them actually wanted to link to Recursion or Recursion (computer science); the previous page had no relation to the material in articles that were linking to it! So I fixed many of the links to Recursive function to point to a more helpful location. I also made a start towards fixing Mu-recursive function. CMummert 16:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

STIX Fonts update

Many of us have been eagerly awaiting the culmination of the STIX font project. A major milestone was recently announced.

  • On 10 July, the STI Pub group received the final delivery of requested glyphs for the STIX Fonts Project. This final set is being reviewed by the STI Pub Technical Review Committee, and packaging instructions for the beta test of the fonts are being prepared. Tables of STIX glyphs will begin to appear on this website within the next few weeks, and the beta font set will begin to be constructed.

So far every deadline has been overly optimistic; still, progress has been real. It appears the race is on, between universal adoption of the STIX mathematics glyphs and Wikipedia adoption of BlahTeX! Regardless of which tortoise crosses the line first, we all win. Huzzah! --KSmrqT 09:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Fleiss' kappa

I don't know if this is the right place to ask about this, but I've been working on Fleiss' kappa, and I'd like to get someone who actually knows what they are talking about to look over it. I have the paper here, but I worked out what is what by trial-and-error because I am pretty much maths illiterate. I'd appreciate it if anyone could look over it, and add {{accuracy}} or something if I've made a mistake. Thanks - FrancisTyers · 16:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

See my comments on the talk page of Fleiss' kappa. VectorPosse 22:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion at Category talk:Mathematics user templates

Hi all,

Just wanted some of the editors opinion on a discussion I started at Category talk:Mathematics user templates. The discussion is about userboxes, a bit technical, but not serious. I don't want to advertize, but the fact is that in most cases, category pages are usually watched by the creators only, and probably even worse in this case, only be the sysop who moved the category. Thanks, — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 17:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Homogeneity

The 'whacky' article Homogeneity is up for deletion - please take a look and comment at Homogeneity. I think it really needs looking at by a statistician. Madmath789 06:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Following some moves by Michael Hardy, the AfD seems to have vanished, and the material I was worried about now lives at homogeneity (statistics) - does anyone see a good reason for not having an AfD discussion about this stuff? Madmath789 15:11, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I've now listed a new AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Homogeneity (statistics) and voted speedy keep on Homogeneity, previous votes have been copied across. --Salix alba (talk) 16:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

User:David Cruise

I would like someone with experience look at edits made by User:David Cruise, User:Cruise, and also IP 65.39.86.104 ([3]) to the mathematical articles, in particular, Supermatrix, matrix addition, matrix subtraction, canonical analysis, homogeneity (statistics) (this article is currently listed at AfD and this actually triggered my interest in the user Cruise) and probably many other articles as well. Note references to Krus' publications and links to Cruise Scientific ([4]), also note many links from Cruise Scientific (see for example, [5]) to the Wikipedia articles in question. I would like someone to sort out contributions with scientific value from original research. (Igny 18:21, 21 July 2006 (UTC))

I have only looked at the article on matrix addition, but it certainly has all the earmarks by being hijacked. Alterations include non-standard definitions and notation, as well as self-promoting links. --KSmrqT 19:41, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I think I am responsible for bringing this to peoples attention, but I have "trodden carefully" as a comparative newcomer to WP (but a comparative 'old-comer' to maths!). I have been looking at the things mentioned above for a few days, and have to say that I believe that most of the content of the articles Homogeneity (statistics) and Canonical analysis are mathematical gibberish, and the matrix stuff is probably nonsense (I have seen many examples of such over the last 4 decades, but these examples are quite staggering!). I do not wish to appear to be waging a vendetta against any contributor to WP, but I have to say that I cannot find anything worth keeping in the previously mentioned articles, and feel that trying to rewrite them would best be done by deleting everything and starting from scratch. Madmath789 20:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the material at canonical analysis is nonsense, but it is not clearly explained in a manner that makes it comprehensible to mathematicians in general. Similarly at homegeneity (statistics). Michael Hardy 22:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Our discussions here may become academic, as User:David Cruise seems to be trying to blank contributions he has made - see for example: Canonical analysis. I know I have been a harsh critic of some of his contributions, but I am unsure if this is the right way to proceed. What do others think? Madmath789 16:56, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Ones contributions are an irrevokable gift (if they are not an infringment of someone else's copyright). So we are free to resurrect them by reverting his deletions. Also we should take care that he does not also delete the contributions of other people. But perhaps any such corrections should be done only after he has been blocked so that he will not commit more such vandalism. JRSpriggs 03:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Blatant spam is of course not needed. But as for 'nonstandard stuff', I don't take stock in nonstandard stuff, because doing stuff in a non-standard way can lead to new ideas. As for matrix addition and matrix subtraction, I reverted one of the articles back to the way it was with his changes, and later removed some spam-like stuff from references and external links. I ask someone who knows more than the textbook definition of matrix addition/subtraction that I do to look over whatever new matrial he put in, save actual methodology that works and is substationally useful. I'm not so sure such a lengthy section is needed on a particular application of matrix subtraction, for example, involving variance. Kevin_b_er 04:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
David Cruise's additions to matrix addition and matrix subtraction are probably correct (though they are badly explained, so I can't be sure of that). However, his definitions are not used in the field of matrix theory. They may well be used in statistics or social sciences, but all we have are some papers written by D. Crus in nonmathematical journals. In contrast, the standard definitions are in every linear algebra textbook. I do not think that "doing stuff in a non-standard way can lead to new ideas" is a good reason for including nonstandard definitions in an encyclopaedia. I think that the nonstandard material to these two articles should be removed, or at least greatly reduced, unless somebody tells us that these definitions have found widespread use in some disciplines. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that David Cruise just vandalized two sections of this very talk page. From the history:

11:52, 25 July 2006 Gandalf61 (Talk | contribs) (rv blanking)
11:48, 25 July 2006 David Cruise (Talk | contribs) (entries containing libellous statements)

Fortunately, Gandalf61 reverted the vandalism. I think that the first administrator who reads this should immediately block David. JRSpriggs 06:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I was considering asking an admin to look at this myself, in view of his blanking of parts of this page, and also his removal of the AfD notice (and other stuff) from Homogeneity (statistics). I am aware, though, that he has also made contributions from another account User:Cruise (not active since 17th April) and might use that one while blocked. I will keep an eye on it. Madmath789 08:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I haven't been around much, so I don't know the details, but a single blanking at this page, while unacceptable, is probably not sufficient to block. I've placed a warning on his talk page. If his behavior continues, a block can certainly be considered. By the way, if we do decide to block, using sockpuppets is grounds for blocking the second account, so that's not a problem. -lethe talk + 08:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
As I understand things, he has already been given a one week block by User:IanManka. Madmath789 08:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Terminology clarification and first use references: "Hypercomplex Number"

Hello,

I'm currently trying to clarify the use of the term "hypercomplex number" over the years and to-date. The goal is to update the hypercomplex number article. Since this may result in a rewrite, it would be great if any ideas or comments could be posted in talk:hypercomplex number, so the reasoning behind a potential rewrite would remain with the article.

Thanks, Jens Koeplinger 21:27, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

PS - It may be that the term "hypercomplex number" is to-date a rather freely used term, like "numbers with 2 or more dimensions and at least one non-real axis". If so, I'll scratch together what I can find in some common places (here, mathworld) and rewrite hypercomplex number in a fashion that puts different systems into different categories (like Cayley-Dickson, split-complex, etc). Thanks, Jens Koeplinger 13:28, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I've just posted a rewrite of the hypercomplex number article. While I tried to carry over all previously existing information and statements into the new version, it now contains much more detail and categorization. I would appreciate any comment or help. Thanks, Jens Koeplinger 22:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello; I haven't received much feedback yet about the hypercomplex number rewrite, so I figure it can't be too bad. There are two obvious weeknesses: "The term hypercomplex number has been used over the years rather freely ..." - if anyone knows about references to be added, please do so. I've seen two more book titles mentioned in the internet, but I'm reluctant to referring to books or titles I didn't read. Without references, my statement has no support within the article.

The second weakness is that I'm writing about "Arguably the most common use of the term hypercomplex number [...]" and only provide links to some other numbers. I'm comfortable with this wording, but to the least I'd like to add a section that groups together these 'arguably not so common uses' of the term "hypercomplex number" (surreal, hyperreal, transfinite, superreal nubers, and - as I recently learned - Mark Burgin's hypernumbers which appear not to have an article in Wikipedia yet).

Maybe we could tailor the "hypercomplex number" article into an overview over all number systems that somehow go beyond or extend the reals. This might help to have the current number article focus on commonly used systems (from natural to complex numbers), and clean-up references to other less frequently applied numbers.

But first I'd like to put the "hypercomplex number" article on better feet, and remove the 'stub' notice once done. Any comment is greatly appreaciated. Thanks, Jens Koeplinger 12:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Good articles

While trying to expand the list of important articles in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0, I've come across a few articles I feel are close to Wikipedia:Good articles status and nominated them appropriately. of these Euclidean geometry, Georg Cantor and David Hilbert has reached GA status. Pi, Fractal, Gottfried Leibniz, Ronald Fisher have failed. Fractal needs someone to check recent additions made by reviewer, Leibniz needs some work organising the references and Pi and Fisher needs more extensive work. If anyone would like to have a look at these articles it should not take much to gain GA status. --Salix alba (talk) 09:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

84.40.138.111 (talk • contribs • WHOIS • block user • block log) and -http://www.apronus.com/provenmath/ links

We've got a new IP address adding external links to the above mentioned web site. I'm tempted to revert en mass, but I'd like a second opinion. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I had just noticed this too, and I agree the links don't belong here. Dmharvey 18:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, noticed them earlier, and find them hard to read (but they may well be valid) - the notation used on that website is 'tedious' to read - see [6] I agree they don't belong here. Madmath789 21:19, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
If I read this page correctly, they claim to have their own proof of the equivalence of Zorn's Lemma and the Axiom of Choice; I hope I'm being unfair, but... What next, the Pythagorean Theorem? Septentrionalis 23:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Proving induction

Please take a look to the article proof of mathematical induction. As a consequence of a remark of mine [7] an editor made some addition to the hypothesis of the proof to make it work. I would like to understand if this proof is "standard" (it should be other wise would be original research) and what is his original form (in particular which hypothesis should we require). What do you think?--Pokipsy76 15:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The concept of "proving" induction is strange. Typically we use an axiom scheme that explicitly states that induction works. A quick glance at this leaves me feeling that it's a bad article. --KSmrqT 19:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
The concept of proving the principle of mathematical induction is certainly not strange - it is a well-known part of mathematical logic and the development of the number system logically. The article might need a bit of work, but the idea is good. Madmath789 19:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "proving". For example, here's a quote from Peano axioms:
Informally, the Peano axioms may be stated as follows:
  • 0 is a natural number.
  • Every natural number a has a successor, denoted by Sa or a'.
  • No natural number has 0 as its successor.
  • Distinct natural numbers have distinct successors: a = b if and only if Sa = Sb.
  • If a property holds for 0, and holds for the successor of every natural number for which it holds, then the property holds for all natural numbers. This axiom of induction legitimizes the proof method known as mathematical induction (induction over the naturals).
I draw your attention to the last item. Essentially it says we "build in" induction; we don't deduce it. Although there are many ways to approach foundations, I don't think we can avoid something along these lines; natural numbers and induction are inseparable. If natural numbers are defined per Peano this whole proof article is silly. If not, the article is confusing; it's not clear where we're beginning, nor exactly what is being accomplished.
If we are going to discuss the article further, we should do so on its talk page. --KSmrqT 23:19, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Proving just means deduction from axioms. Clearly, in PA, mathematical induction is an axiom, but in developing maths from ZFC, it is not an axiom, so it needs to be proved from the axioms. Madmath789 06:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with both KSmrq and Madmath: The idea of proving the induction principle is not "strange" in itself, and yet the article in question is a bad article (and I have my doubts that any article with that title would be good). Induction is not assumed explicitly in, say, the usual formulations of ZFC, and can be proved once you've defined the naturals. But there's less here than meets the eye; it's a boring technical detail rather than something particularly significant, and having an article about it might give the misimpression that there's something fundamental being done. The existing article is worse than that; it starts with the assumption that the naturals are wellordered. From there the induction principle really is a triviality. --Trovatore 19:56, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not clear to me in which sense can we be supposed to prove induction principle from the well ordering assumption: the well ordering itself is useless unless we have some extra assumption to work with (for example the assumption that x#0→x=y+1)--Pokipsy76 20:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I gave that article a prod. -lethe talk + 20:37, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you could have waited a little bit to let us discuss about it before going to vote.--Pokipsy76 20:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Prodding does not involve a voting process. We have ample time to discuss this. --LambiamTalk 00:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Are you sure? Look here.--Pokipsy76 20:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
The PROD, which involves no voting and can be halted in an instant, was forced into AfD, which requires voting and admin participation. The official decision was no consensus. My unofficial summary of the comments: the article needs improving, and probably the proof should be merged into the parent article. It would be nice for one of the "keep" voters (Pokipsy76?, Ryan Reich?) to volunteer. --KSmrqT 00:18, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Done. I "morally" merged the article; the actual material in it was sort of long-winded. I also put in the stuff on transfinite induction and included a reference to Kolmogorov and Fomin. The original proof article remains, with a {{merging}} tempate added. Ryan Reich 02:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that's much better. --KSmrqT 09:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Good. I've changed the old article to a redirect now. Ryan Reich 15:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles listed at Articles for deletion

The following articles have been listed at Articles for deletion but not caught by the 'bot:

Uncle G 11:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

it is now. Septentrionalis 21:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
The decision on Wilkinson's polynomial was keep, after a number of editors worked on cleaning it up and clarifying its significance. --KSmrqT 00:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The following articles have been listed at Articles for deletion but not caught by the 'bot:

Uncle G 17:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The bot runs once a day; it may be preferable either to wait a day and see if it is picked up, or add this to the list by hand. Septentrionalis 22:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
The decision on imaginary logarithm was redirect to complex logarithm, agreed unanimously. --KSmrqT 09:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

article variational number theory is back

User_talk:Karl-H has recreated the page. He's also made edits to calculus of variations and number theory among others. Somebody familiar with the subjects and the original RfD might want to take a look. Lunch 19:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Integral equations has been edited too. Lunch 19:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Reverted all of those. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Removing the redlinks in the list of mathematicians

Currently the list of mathematicians has a certain number of redlinks. I would argue that that was a good thing when Wikipedia was new and plenty of famous people did not have articles and when there was no bot to maintain that list.

I would think that now we would be better off having the list of mathematicians list articles which actually exist, with redlinks (requests for new articles) going to Wikipedia:Requested articles/Mathematics instead. Removing the redlinks from the list of mathematicians would also make it easier to see what mathematician articles got created/deleted by inspecting the Current activity.

In short, how about removing all the redlinks from the list of mathematicians? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:32, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. Can I also encourage people to add to the requested mathematician list? As a grad student, I'm hesitant to create articles for mathematicians that work at my school. I'd feel more comfortable if they were on the requested list. Thanks. Originalbigj 19:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
The bot now removes redlinks from the list of mathematicians (log). Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
It appears that you removed the redlink to Thomas Jech from the list of mathematicians, but did not add it to the list of requested articles on mathematicians. If a redlink is removed from one, I think that it should be added to the other (if not already there). And what if someone destroys the article or moves it to another name? JRSpriggs 03:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Update. I just created a stub for Thomas Jech. I did not see the redlink removal in the log. But I remember creating a redlink for him a month or two back. JRSpriggs 03:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I did not add the redlinks to Wikipedia:Requested articles/Mathematics on purpose, it is not clear if those redlinks are indeed "Wanted" articles.

If an article gets deleted (which only administrators can do) my bot will remove it from the list of mathematicians. If an article gets renamed, the bot will reflect the rename in the list. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 04:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Oyam's Pyramid

The article Oyam's Pyramid is currently proposed for deletion. It seems to me that it would be likely to be covered by some area of mathematics rather than being a complete hoax, but I've been unable to track down any evidence for its existence with this title. Could somebody take a look and see if a) it's a valid but wrongly-titled article, b)it needs merging or redirecting to some other concept, or c) it's complete garbage. Thanks Yomangani 10:46, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Since there are no Google hits for any of this (except to Wikipedia), it is definitely made up. In my opinion it doesn't make much practical sense if you actually mean to build a pyramid. (Disclaimer: I have no actual experience in pyramid construction.) Mathematically it seems to be a pointless triviality. --LambiamTalk 23:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Piotr Blass

I was wondering what people thought of the article Piotr Blass and the anon User: 69.163.189.9 who has created it and spent some time inserting the name of Piotr Blass into the articles of several distinguished mathematicians, e.g. Hassler Whitney and Heisuke Hironaka. I spy several dubious claims to fame in the Blass article, e.g. inventing the World Wibe Web. There's also a very interesting assertion that he's the student of a number of famous mathematicians (such as the ones I mentioned prior). Blass is apparently enough of a famous mathematician that the statement that Whitney taught "mathematics education" to Blass is an important thing to include into Whitney's article.

Blass' publication list looks fairly average and is bolstered by a number of publications to a journal that he founded and that I've never heard of. To be fair, I noticed that Zariski surface exists and was created by User:r.e.b.; it appears that Blass named Zariski surfaces and has some papers on them in respectable journals. So I wouldn't advocate a deletion of the Blass article. But it seems there's a lot of what might be called "tooting one's own horn" (if the anon is indeed Blass). --Chan-Ho (Talk) 17:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

A quick google reveals Blass was given Grothendieck's prenotes for EGA 5. [8] So he certainly knew some influential people. There also seem to be proof of editorship of journal [9], standing in elections as a write in candidate (lots of links). Slashdot (that most relaible of sorces) mentions hims in conection with some dubious compression algorithm work with ZeoSync [10]. --Salix alba (talk) 19:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
And another quick look at Google Schoolar shows 24 publications mentioning his name, including some on Zariski surfaces. Google Print also gives few hits. On the other hand, the article needs copyedit and other claims ('one of the fathers of the Internet) seem more dubious.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  02:53, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I removed links to his name from several well known mathematicians. Math Genealogy lists two advisors: James Milne and Melvin Hochster. Others may have taught him some undergrad classes but anyway this is not notable. Using ip trace I found a clear evidence that he is trying to promote himself and is using WP for political purposes. I actually don't mind (and don't care) whatever is on the page on him but find inappropriate the insertion of his name averywhere. Inventor of WWW is simply laughable (he does give half the credit to Sir. Tim Berners-Lee). Mhym 14:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

15 of his 33 publications are in the Ulam Quarterly, which he founded. This journal was founded in 1987; before going defunct in 1997, it published a whopping 10 issues, each of which contains at least one (sometimes two) articles co-authored by Piotr Blass. This journal is, according the journal website, also the first electronic mathematics journal and is apparently the basis for Blass' claim of being inventor of the WWW.

It's not just the WWW claim that is dubious. A number of his achievements listed are suspect. Simply knowing and interacting with famous people is not an achievement. In fact, a number of people do this...that goes hand-in-hand with being famous (a lot of people know and talk to you). Organizing seminars at IAS is not an achievement. Being a member (even visiting), would be.

Blass' claim to fame is doing some of the early work on Zariski surface and naming it. I'm not sure if he's even as notable as Norman Johnson. But like I said, his bio should probably stay, but it needs to be heavily edited by people other than Blass. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 16:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I got the founding date of 1987 for the journal from the anon/Blass edit, but apparently the first issue came out in 1992 according to the journal website (see contents of first issue) and MathSciNet. I don't suppose this really matters or adds anything except to give a more accurate context for Blass' WWW claim. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 17:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
There is some wonderful dirt on Blass [11]

[12] I don't quite understand it all but it seems to involve a company called CyberNet, 5 Star Trust Bank, kids in abusive treatment center, Diebold. Seems like Blass had evidence of defects in Diabold voting machines, being hacked by kind from Bay Point School correction facility (where he taught), but he withheld information due to ties with an atoney with connections to the republican party (the attony helped Blass get his son out of another correction facility).

So to add to inventing the WWW, we might add Blass was responsible for Bush getting into the whitehouse in 2000. --Salix alba (talk) 18:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
AfD it is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Piotr Blass. --Salix alba (talk) 19:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
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