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Revision as of 11:47, 25 October 2019 editHasteur (talk | contribs)31,857 edits Undid revision 922957519 by Joel B. Lewis (talk) Please review WP:TPNOTag: Undo← Previous edit Revision as of 11:51, 25 October 2019 edit undoJayBeeEll (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, New page reviewers28,209 edits Undid revision 922957741 by Hasteur (talk) Please go away -- in this instance, what matters is not having a stupid argument spread here and wasting yet more time over childishness. This is not a correct forum for personal call-outs.Tag: UndoNext edit →
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When banned, I will also try to publish some error fixes (e.g., typos) at my talkpage that should be made to articles in Misplaced Pages. -- ] (]) 10:54, 25 October 2019 (UTC) When banned, I will also try to publish some error fixes (e.g., typos) at my talkpage that should be made to articles in Misplaced Pages. -- ] (]) 10:54, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
:Please ]. Specifically {{tq|non-constructive edits to the draft pages}} implies that editors have ulterior motives and as such is not assuming good faith. Please strike at your earliest opportunity. ] (]) 11:29, 25 October 2019 (UTC)


== Glossary of Lie algebras → Glossary of Lie groups and Lie algebras == == Glossary of Lie algebras → Glossary of Lie groups and Lie algebras ==

Revision as of 11:51, 25 October 2019

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Article and talk page title mismatch for Dual-complex numbers

Currently, the page Dual-complex numbers redirects to Dual-complex number, but Talk:Dual-complex number redirects to Talk:Dual-complex numbers, not vice versa. Either the article and talk page should both be plural, or else, they should both be singular. JBW only moved the talk page back to the plural title, but not the article. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 21:57, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Done, moved the singular article title to the plural article title to match the talk page move by JBW. — MarkH21 (talk) 22:06, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
@MarkH21, JBW, and GeoffreyT2000:That seems backwards: compare complex numbers, real numbers, quaternions, etc. --JBL (talk) 22:45, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
@Joel B. Lewis: You’re completely right. I made the move just to match the talk page without actually looking at the discussion or reason for the talk page move itself. — MarkH21 (talk) 23:32, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

@GeoffreyT2000, Joel B. Lewis, and MarkH21: It seems to me more natural to have "complex numbers", "real numbers", etc, but since, as JBL has pointed out, we have the singular forms, I have moved Dual-complex numbers back to Dual-complex number for consistency. And of course moving just the talk page was a mistake; thank you GeoffreyT2000 for pointing it out. JBW (talk) Formerly known as JamesBWatson 12:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

MacCullagh ellipsoid and Galois axis

The article MacCullagh ellipsoid survived a deletion debate last year (at the time, I said that where there might be an argument for a merge-and-redirect, that can be decided at a later date). It has since been moved to MacCullagh ellipsoid and Galois axis, which seems to give undue prominence to the "Galois axis" part, given that it appears to be the pet idea of Semjon Adlaj, himself of uncertain wiki-notability, and not an established term. I may take a crack at sorting all this out myself, but perhaps someone would like to beat me to it. XOR'easter (talk) 23:33, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Moved back, seems silly when "Galois axis" is defined on "MacCullagh ellipsoids" and is of uncertain notability. — MarkH21 (talk) 21:35, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
The aformentioned article on Adlaj is now at AfD. — MarkH21 (talk) 21:47, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
And now there's an article Galois axis? XOR'easter (talk) 21:29, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

The IP/SPA edit-warring has continued on Galois axis and MacCullagh ellipsoid, so I have taken Galois axis to AfD to end the chance for future edit-warring. The activity has also spread to Tennis racket theorem, j-invariant, and WP:ANI#Please restore the stable version of MacCullagh ellipsoid and Galois axis. Attention appreciated. — MarkH21 (talk) 15:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

AfD closed due to some effective edit conflicts with sock disruption. Also forgot to mention the same disruption is also at Pendulum (mathematics).
— Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkH21 (talkcontribs) 15:34, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

The German Misplaced Pages has a better article on the topic de:Trägheitsellipsoid which seems to be related to inertial ellipsoid. It apparently the geometric location of all angular momenta corresponding to the same rotational energy. --Salix alba (talk): 19:46, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Salix alba: Yes, in fact that corresponds better to the article Poinsot's ellipsoid, which mentions the inertia ellipsoid and whose existence partially prompted the original AfD. — MarkH21 (talk) 19:55, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Statement in the lead of the article on infinity

In the article Infinity, there's a statement in the lead: "For example, Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem uses the existence of very large infinite sets." I don't really know anything about this stuff, and this struck me as rather surprising, so I went to look for more. However, nothing in the article talks about this, and nothing at the article on the proof seems to say anything about this either. I also couldn't find anything after a cursory search. So I really have no idea if this is a valid statement or not; I've tagged it with a {{cn}} for now, but if anyone happens to know more about this, please feel free to either set me right, or even excise the statement with extreme prejudice. Thanks, –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 02:54, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

@Deacon Vorbis: It’s because Wiles’ proof (and much of the cohomology used in modern number theory) uses Grothendieck universes. Within ZFC, their existence is equivalent to the existence of certain large cardinals. Here is a suitable reference. You (or someone else) can judge whether this is appropriate in the lead there though - I don’t really know much about this kind of stuff. — MarkH21 (talk) 03:18, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
Just my impression but that sentence does look out of place, because in mathematics (or at least in algebraic geometry), one doesn’t worry too much about the set-theoretic issues. Some results might collapse without the existence of a strongly inaccessible cardinal. But they might not (with some care, it is sometimes possible to avoid the use of universe but I think people don’t bother). Determining that is an (interesting or uninteresting) original research and cannot be done in Misplaced Pages. — Taku (talk) 23:09, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
I added some words there ("in fact", maybe not "in principle"... according to that source); feel free to revert if you dislike it. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 20:30, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
Maybe I shouldn't argue again after writing "feel free to revert if you dislike it", but let me do. XOR'easter's text "For example, Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem uses the existence of very large infinite sets, though it may happen that another proof that avoids such sets will be found" is deleted by MarkH21 with edit summary "this whole bit feels unnecessary, the sentence is about Wiles’ proof - not all proofs - so there’s no implication about any other proof", logically flawless and nevertheless controversial. A reader (human, not robot) seeing that a famous proof uses (or "is written with the implicit reliance on" according to Takuya Murata) an exotic assumption, probably concludes that this assumption is, or at least is widely believed to be, necessary. Why? First, math textbooks often encourage a student to check that each assumption (of a theorem) is necessary; thus a student may believe that doing otherwise is unprofessional. Second, otherwise, why mention this fact in the lead to "infinity" article? Third, otherwise experts would find (or at least, actively seek; or, at the very least, debate possible existence) of a "better" proof. And really, it is debated (see the source : used "in fact", not "in principle"), which is not even hinted at in our article. Thus is why I feel that our article is a bit misleading (or not neutral). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 17:43, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm neutral on whether the whole sentence should be kept in the lead or not. (I can see Grothendieck universe might be an interesting thing to mention in the lead.) I changed "use" because the meaning of it is very unclear; one can argue that the use of "universe" is a stylistic choice but not a logical necessity (and I don't think we know the answer). I agree the wording I introduced was somehow strange but I couldn't figure out the better one (would be happy to see the others give a shot too). -- Taku (talk) 23:55, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
My feeling is that the mention of large cardinals in the use of a famous theorem is mildly interesting and engaging to any reader, but not essential to the lead. However, further elaboration on the possibility of resolving the reliance on Grothendieck universes (still unknown according to the cited source) seems unnecessary for a brief engaging digression. Since Wiles's proof relies on the existence of Grothendieck universes, and it's unknown whether that reliance may be removed by some other way, it seems completely honest to just say that Wiles's proof relies on it. So the current brief mention seems fine and mildly interesting to me, but I disagree with including a further digression on how it's unknown whether the reliance can be removed. — MarkH21 (talk) 08:43, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
I'd prefer nothing at all to something a bit misleading. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 10:12, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
I introduced this sentence by . The purpose of it was to fix a common misconception that infinity would be a philosophical concept in mathematics. IMO, this is important to show that, in mathematics, infinity is no more a philosophical concept, but is, presently, a purely mathematical concept that is mathematically studied, and is widely used across. Looking at many Misplaced Pages article, such as this one, that are close to the interface between philosophy and mathematics, it appears that my above assertions, which are evidence for most mathematicians, are not widely known outside mathematics community. Thus my edit was a tentative for clarify this. The whole article would need to be clarified from this point of view, but, at least, the lead require to be clear, as many readers look only on it.
IMO, the example of Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem is essential in the lead, because it the only example that I know that can be used to show to non mathematicians that the manipulation of infinity as a mathematical concept is useful even for problems that seem unrelated. For making clear that this is the purpose of this example, I have completed the sentence by "for solving a long standing problem, which is stated in terms of elementary arithmetic". D.Lazard (talk) 11:28, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Nice; but it is unfair to implicitly overstate it by exploiting the implicit assumption of some (or many?) readers that "uses" means here "uses in principle" rather than "uses in fact" (these phrases appear in the source because McLarty recognizes this potential for confusion). Till now, no one addresses my "first", "second" and "third" arguments (above). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 11:45, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Typo in an article (edit request?)

Very unfamiliar with how wikipedia works but this seems to be where to submit this. In this article, under the section "Extensions of the standard dictionary numbers", for the value of 10^51 sexdecillion, it instead says sedecillion. This also does not align with the "Standard dictionary numbers" section of the article with the proper spelling. Pnunya (talk) 16:21, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. It looks like the "Extensions of the standard dictionary numbers" table is based on a different system, in which the prefix se- takes an x before octo but not before deci. XOR'easter (talk) 16:27, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

De Bruijn index and De Bruijn notation

The current version of the former article links to the latter, with a note: "This notation has little to do with De Bruijn indices, but the name "De Bruijn notation" is often (erroneously) used to stand for it." I do not see how this can be correct - both are ways of representing lambda terms uniquely in terms of alpha-equality, and therefor identical. I'm considering removing this note. Airbornemihir (talk) 11:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Done. Airbornemihir (talk) 11:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Nevertheless, the article began with "Not to be confused with De Bruijn notation. In mathematical logic, the de Bruijn index is a notation..." This was highly confusing. Thus, I have modified the hatnote, and removed the use of "notaation" in the first sentence. In any case, it is wrong to say that De Bruijn index and De Bruijn notation are identical, as the bind variables are named in one case and not in the other. D.Lazard (talk) 13:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Multiplicity (statistical mechanics)

Dear mathematicians: Here's a draft article that is within the interest of this WikiProject. Perhaps someone who with knowledge of this field can take a look at it.—Anne Delong (talk) 11:45, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

My first impression is that it is written like an essay and would need cleaning up before it could be suitable as an article. The content appears redundant with diversity index, surprisal, entropy and other existing articles. XOR'easter (talk) 17:25, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

“Quotient” of functional integrals

Normally, if we write one expression on top of a fraction line and another on the bottom, we evaluate both before dividing. This would yield an indeterminate form when both the numerator and denominator are functional integrals with infinite value. Yet the article on functional integrals states “Most functional integrals are actually infinite, but then the limit of the quotient of two related functional integrals can still be finite”. Huh?

The topic overall needs love. It’s way too hand-way right now.—Jasper Deng (talk) 04:31, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Apparently, that phrase is like " f ( x ) = d y d x {\displaystyle f'(x)={\tfrac {dy}{dx}}} " that hints at lim Δ y Δ x {\displaystyle \lim {\tfrac {\Delta y}{\Delta x}}} rather than lim Δ y lim Δ x {\displaystyle {\tfrac {\lim \Delta y}{\lim \Delta x}}} . Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:06, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
And by the way: I just added EoM article to "See also" there. But I was not able to use the Template:SpringerEOM, since its "http:" is obsolete and not working; now must be "https:". Oops, no; "id=" is needed, in addition to "title=". Boris Tsirelson (talk) 06:23, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Drafts to be watched

Hi all. There is a possibility that I will be banned in a next day or 2 for an indefinite or definite period of time (see the very last section of Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#Topic Ban Request: TakuyaMurata).

So, it would be nice if some other editors can watch out for non-constructive edits to the draft pages listed in Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Mathematics/List of math draft pages. Also, in the thread, there is a proposal that drafts started by me over a year ago should be moved out of the draftspace. Since they are not my drafts, it would be natural to put them as subpages to the project page. If some other editors think this is a good idea, please go ahead and do. (I will not be able to do that myself because of the ban.) —- Taku (talk) 23:21, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

When banned, I will also try to publish some error fixes (e.g., typos) at my talkpage that should be made to articles in Misplaced Pages. -- Taku (talk) 10:54, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Glossary of Lie algebras → Glossary of Lie groups and Lie algebras

Maybe not controversial but I have made a proposal for the move in the title at Talk:Glossary of Lie algebras. —- Taku (talk) 04:04, 25 October 2019 (UTC)