| Revision as of 21:33, 4 October 2014 editMgnbar (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users3,363 edits →Modular exponentiation: new section← Previous edit | Revision as of 04:57, 5 October 2014 edit undoTrovatore (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers38,114 edits →Natural number: new sectionNext edit → | ||
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| We have long-standing articles at ] and ]. (They should probably be merged, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.) Recently, a new editor has written a third article, ], that covers much of the same material. He has rather persistently linked to it from other articles, such as ]. I have proposed a merge, but the editor refuses to respond to any kind of discussion. So we could use some input from the community in this little knot of articles. ] (]) 21:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC) | We have long-standing articles at ] and ]. (They should probably be merged, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.) Recently, a new editor has written a third article, ], that covers much of the same material. He has rather persistently linked to it from other articles, such as ]. I have proposed a merge, but the editor refuses to respond to any kind of discussion. So we could use some input from the community in this little knot of articles. ] (]) 21:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC) | ||
| == Natural number == | |||
| A new editor is insisting on major changes to the lead of ] without waiting for consensus. Please take a look. --] (]) 04:57, 5 October 2014 (UTC) | |||
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See also: Using Misplaced Pages for mathematics self-study Why are Misplaced Pages mathematics articles so abstract? Abstraction is a fundamental part of mathematics. Even the concept of a number is an abstraction. Comprehensive articles may be forced to use abstract language because that language is the only language available to give a correct and thorough description of their topic. Because of this, some parts of some articles may not be accessible to readers without a lot of mathematical background. If you believe that an article is overly abstract, then please leave a detailed comment on the talk page. If you can provide a more down-to-earth exposition, then you are welcome to add that to the article. Why don't Misplaced Pages's mathematics articles define or link all of the terms they use? Sometimes editors leave out definitions or links that they believe will distract the reader. If you believe that a mathematics article would be more clear with an additional definition or link, please add to the article. If you are not able to do so yourself, ask for assistance on the article's talk page. Why don't many mathematics articles start with a definition? We try to make mathematics articles as accessible to the largest likely audience as possible. In order to achieve this, often an intuitive explanation of something precedes a rigorous definition. The first few paragraphs of an article (called the lead) are supposed to provide an accessible summary of the article appropriate to the target audience. Depending on the target audience, it may or may not be appropriate to include any formal details in the lead, and these are often put into a dedicated section of the article. If you believe that the article would benefit from having more formal details in the lead, please add them or discuss the matter on the article's talk page. Why don't mathematics articles include lists of prerequisites? A well-written article should establish its context well enough that it does not need a separate list of prerequisites. Furthermore, directly addressing the reader breaks Misplaced Pages's encyclopedic tone. If you are unable to determine an article's context and prerequisites, please ask for help on the talk page. Why are Misplaced Pages's mathematics articles so hard to read? We strive to make our articles comprehensive, technically correct and easy to read. Sometimes it is difficult to achieve all three. If you have trouble understanding an article, please post a specific question on the article's talk page. Why don't math pages rely more on helpful YouTube videos and media coverage of mathematical issues? Mathematical content of YouTube videos is often unreliable (though some may be useful for pedagogical purposes rather than as references). Media reports are typically sensationalistic. This is why they are generally avoided. |
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Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/WikiProject used
List of mathematical shapes
ALERT, List of mathematical shapes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has been greatly expanded by 300kB this month, by users occupying IP ranges 99.xxx.xxx.xxx and 108.xxx.xxx.xxx who have also been reverting each other. Some of the new additions are not mathematical shapes at all, and a proposal to rename the page exists at talk:List of mathematical shapes. Up until this rash of activity it was only 2.5kB large -- 70.51.46.146 (talk) 05:18, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Unsourced material at Midy's theorem
Somebody restored unsourced material at Midy's theorem here: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Midy%27s_theorem&oldid=prev&diff=626394495 on the grounds that "this is referred to in other places in article". More precisely, the material derives from an unpublished 2005 article in a pdf at a personal homepage. If this has been published in the meantime by all means we can use this, but otherwise it seems more reasonable to remove these mentions "in other places in article". Tkuvho (talk) 10:22, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
- This reference may be helpful. Deltahedron (talk) 10:46, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
- This published article by Ross is certainly a fine source if it proves the relevant generalization of Midy's theorem. Why should the page rely on an unpublished pdf from a homepage rather than a published article by Ross? Tkuvho (talk) 11:08, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
- I restored the section headed "Extended Midy's theorem" because it had been excised without considering the rest of the article. As a result, the following section, which starts "Midy's theorem and its extension ...", could have left the casual reader baflled as to what the "extension" part refered to. There are further references to the extended theorem in the "Proof" section of the article. If we now have a better source for the extension, then certainly go ahead and add it to the article (I can only see a preview of the Ross article on JSTOR, so I am not clear whether this covers the extended theorem or not). Gandalf61 (talk) 14:23, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- This published article by Ross is certainly a fine source if it proves the relevant generalization of Midy's theorem. Why should the page rely on an unpublished pdf from a homepage rather than a published article by Ross? Tkuvho (talk) 11:08, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Problem at Ramsey theory
Could use more eyes at Ramsey theory. An editor has been putting in unpublished (look carefully at the references) new results and has been reverted three times now. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 04:03, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
- You mean Ramsey's theorem. I have applied temporary semiprotection to encourage the IP and the new editor to work for consensus. So far nobody has used the article talk page. EdJohnston (talk) 04:13, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Spinors
I have been attempting for some time to make the lead of the spinor article accessible to a wider audience, in part on my own impetus, but in part on the helpful urgings of others of varying skill levels. But now we seem to be at an impasse that would benefit from some outside input. Four milestones in the recent bout of edits are:
- August 14 revision
- This revision from yesterday, which was the culmination of I think the most input from other editors.
- This revision from today, where I tried to get some "high brow" content into the first paragraph.
- Finally, this is me giving up, and basically going back to the philosophy adopted by the August 14 revision, modulo saying things in hopefully a way that doesn't require the reader to know what an "irreducible representation" is, which I think is far beyond what likely readers of the article are already familiar with.
I would like some input on a way forward. It has already been suggested that the way forward is backwards, but I would find it hard to believe that all of the work and discussion in the mean time has been for naught. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:48, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- There is now also this revision, thanks to helpful edits from User:RogierBrussee. I would appreciate any input from project members. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- I have made a few further changes here. Someone else really needs to look at this the editing environment there has become problematic. One editor, who has accused me of ownership there (although it rather looks the other way around) is now threatening to revert to his preferred revision. The editor threatening to revert has run roughshod over rather a lot of discussion that has taken place, and not really correctly understood the sequence of edits that took place as the product of those discussions. I would happily welcome more constructive input, but this post seems to indicate no interest in constructive discussion. More opinions are urgently needed there. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:06, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
To update, RogierBrussee has reverted to one of Sławomir's versions. M∧ŜcħεИτlk 20:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- Well, I think this revert leaves the lead in worse shape. Does anyone disagree? Sławomir Biały (talk) 20:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- I hate to say this, but it is not as good as this version you wrote, long before the "introduction" section was added. Based on the comments at talk:spinor not everyone is happy with it though... M∧ŜcħεИτlk 21:05, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- I reverted to one edit after my last edit which was indeed an improvement. After that things got worse than what they were in my opinion. More to the point I had asked Slawomir to back off after he spent days improving things without getting to a satisfactory result and let me have a go at it to which he agreed, and I would let it be known that I was finished. I object to Slawomir taking of on a new editing spree just hours after my first edits and before I said I was finished. I wrote that i would revert his edits and I did. After that I moved the two more technical paragraphs to the overview section and deleted what was there. In my opinion that is an improvement. Slawomir obviously disagrees and reverted everything. There seems to be this mistaken idea that spinors are just like vectors and one just has to use some magic explanatory tool like the non simply connectedness of the Rotation group. That is just not true. Root systems or Clifford algebra's will get you the existence of spinor representations, and with a lot of explanation you can relate that to representation theory but it is just not trivial. Therefore it is pointless to try to explain things for the laymen. I am all in favour making things as simple as possible but not simpler. For example saying that the Clifford algebra is generated by the gamma matrices misses the point, because what you have to do is to construct a representation of the abstract Clifford algebra (which is constructed from the vector space) to a concrete matrix algebra. So every choice of orthonormal basis and every choice of gamma matrices gives a different, albeit isomorphic representation of the Clifford algebra and a different but isomorphic representation of the Spin group. See? Seems like a trivial difference at first but now start reading Weinbergs (otherwise excelent) book on quantum field and notice how he starts writing down explicit gamma matrices on page 3 or so, which is horrible because now what depends on the choice of gamma matrices and what does not. The worst thing about this whole affair is that all this energy would be better spent on other sections. I particularly hate the example section which seems to be written by someone from geometric algebra people that want every thing inside the Clifford algebra. It would be so much better if the different constructions were run through and compared in dimension 3 and 4 (and perhaps dimension 2). RogierBrussee (talk) 23:00, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
"Therefore it is pointless to try to explain things for the laymen." This is an absolutely wrong starting position in editing an article that is likely to be read by probably many high school and college students, who are "laymen" by the standards of the revisions you have in mind. The lead must at least convey a sense of what the thing is about to all of the likely readers of the article. To disregard this consideration is astonishing. Sławomir Biały (talk) 23:10, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, I agree. This flies in the face of WP:TECHNICAL. We should strive to keep the leads of our articles at as low a level of difficulty as possible, while retaining the details of the subject later in the articles. Writing an article that can be read only by people who are already experts is pointless. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- See my lengthy explanation on laymen in the Talk page.
TL;DR Given that many of the mathematically and physically literate people here are already somewhat confused on the details about this subject (really nobodies fault I hasten to say, the confusion is widely taught), clarity and correctness take precedence over intuitive understanding because _there is no intuitive route to the existence of spinors_ , at least not one that I and apparently Michael Atiyah is aware of. The properties of spinors are easy enough to explain for say first year physics students, and I did, I think. In my opinion it is OK if even a bright high school student comes to the conclusion that they have something to do with the geometry of vectors and quantum mechanics, but for a proper understanding he or she needs more background. That is just the way it is, and no mention of WP:Technical can change that. Anyway I am tired of fighting this. It is not that I don't want to cooperate, I just cannot do it when every time I make an edit it is reverted within minutes or "improved" before I have time to get to a new round of editing. I have tried giving Slawomir input which he did try to incorporate at some point but only after a very long and frustrating process for all of us and with a result that nobody was pleased with. I have work, wife and kids and they all need attention. RogierBrussee (talk) 10:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- The bottom line here is that you seem to be of the opinion that your revision of the lead and introduction to the article is better than the current one. The community already responded quite positively to the initial edits aimed at making the lead accessible to a wider audience. The present version is the product of many revisions in response to comments on the talk page. Notwithstanding your current frustration, I think the current revision is superior than any that has preceded it, in large part due to your own efforts. But it is there for all to see, and I think others should be allowed to judge.
- "For a proper understanding, one needs more background" — yes, but so what? That does not mean we shouldn't try to explain things as best as we can to those that don't have this background. Surely that is one of the most important functions of an encyclopedia. Also, for a sufficient definition of "proper", this is surely an unreasonable attainment to expect of any reader of an encyclopedia article about spinors. Entire books are written about spinors. And even Sir Michael Atiyah, as you have helpfully pointed out, admits to not understanding them "properly". Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I just want to say that despite all the frustration, head-butting and occasional drama, real strides have been made in this article. Comparing the August 11 version to the current version, both the lead and introduction are much, much improved in clarity and accessibility. I know there are still issues to hash out, but good job, you all. --Mark viking (talk) 20:28, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Thank you RogierBrussee and Sławomir Biały (in no particular order) for the good work on the spinor article, and thank you for listening to every single concern from us mere mortals in the spinor world. YohanN7 (talk) 22:39, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Suren Arakelov
Can anyone point to a reliable source for his biographical details? In particular, is there any support for the assertion that he is of Armenian descent? The article currently has no references that give anything about him personally, as opposed to Arakelov theory, and if nothing emerges then the article may have to be deleted on BLP and general notability grounds. Deltahedron (talk) 15:28, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- Interesting case. This compilation of information about people whose names are embedded in Math Subject Classifcation has a good bit of information about him distributed through the document. It was compiled by Dave Rusin. It looks to have good information, but isn't a peer-reviewed document. --Mark viking (talk) 18:37, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
- I saw that too, it's linked from the Russian-language version. I can't see that being a reliable source: it's effectively a personal blog quoting personal emails. I'm certainly not going to include assertions of mental illness based on that. Deltahedron (talk) 18:54, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Redirect Radical extension
For the past three years, the redirect Radical extension has been targeted at Separable extension, but an IP editor has recently objected to this, on the grounds that the "redirect is nonsensical. Radical extensions are neither identical to nor special cases of separable extensions nor are they mentioned anywhere on that page." Now, I know little of Galois theory, so I thought I'd ask for input here as to whether a more suitable target (or targets) is available, or whether the original should be restored. Thank you, VeryCrocker (talk) 20:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
- Abelian extension (the redirect target of Solvable extension) sounds like a better choice to me for a redirect from radical extension. (Or we could have separate articles but these are all very closely related.) —David Eppstein (talk) 20:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Are Glossary_of_commutative_algebra#R or Purely inseparable extension not potential candidates? I only ask because they mention the term. If more than one target is suitable, a disambiguation page could be made. --VeryCrocker (talk) 20:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- I don't think the term "radical extension" is ambiguous — it's a subextension of a solvable extension, which is in turn an extension that can be factored into a tower of abelian extensions. But maybe since there are several relevant articles to link to, a stub that links to all of them would be appropriate. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- IMO, "radical extension" deserves to be a true article, because of the "fundamental theorem of Galois theory of equations" (the name is mine): If a field K of characteristic different of n contains the n-th roots of unity, an extension of degree n of K has a cyclic Galois group if and only it is a radical extension. This is this theorem that implies that a polynomial equation is solvable in radicals if and only if its Galois group is solvable. I'll try to write this article. D.Lazard (talk) 08:41, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
- A good place to start might be a few lines at Glossary_of_field_theory#Field_extensions. Deltahedron (talk) 10:36, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
- IMO, "radical extension" deserves to be a true article, because of the "fundamental theorem of Galois theory of equations" (the name is mine): If a field K of characteristic different of n contains the n-th roots of unity, an extension of degree n of K has a cyclic Galois group if and only it is a radical extension. This is this theorem that implies that a polynomial equation is solvable in radicals if and only if its Galois group is solvable. I'll try to write this article. D.Lazard (talk) 08:41, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Category:Pretzel knots and links
Category:Pretzel knots and links, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for renaming to Category:Pretzel knots and links (mathematics). If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. RevelationDirect (talk) 02:36, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Comment on the WikiProject X proposal
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Misplaced Pages struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! Harej (talk) 15:17, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Combinatorics terminology
Hi, I am sitting over a text that has the following passage: "The oligonucleotide spectrum owes much of its discriminatory power to the number of possible oligonucleotides: if n is the size of the vocabulary and w is oligonucleotide size, the number of possible distinct oligonucleotides is n; for example, there are 4=1024 possible pentanucleotides." I would like to link it to the appropriate English Misplaced Pages article but am not sure which one this would be. On the German Misplaced Pages, the relevant information is in Variation (Kombinatorik), and that article links to Partial permutation here, which seems a plausible English equivalent to me, yet the article is written in a way that I am not sure it actually covers the same subject as the German one. Any pointers or clarifications? -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 23:20, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Partial permutation is, in the German terminology, a variation without repetitions. You want variations with repetitions, a different concept. I think the relevant article is n-tuple. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:34, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- Essentially what you have is exponentiation. This section of the article talks about elements from an alphabet Exponentiation#Combinatorial_interpretation. Maximilianklein (talk) 00:14, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks to both of you for checking. I'm going for Exponentiation#Combinatorial_interpretation. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 00:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- I believe that you have made the correct choice based on the content of these articles. However, the natural combinatorial term would be "n-tuple". The problem here is that n-tuple redirects to tuple where the concept gets confounded with a different usage (in computer science mostly) and gets buried in an attempt to encompass all meanings of tuple. I actually like the "variation with repetition" terminology used in German, but unfortunately that is not commonly used in English. I will attempt to add something to tuple that supports the n-tuple redirect. Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 04:03, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Done Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 21:07, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks to both of you for checking. I'm going for Exponentiation#Combinatorial_interpretation. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 00:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Essentially what you have is exponentiation. This section of the article talks about elements from an alphabet Exponentiation#Combinatorial_interpretation. Maximilianklein (talk) 00:14, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/Geometric nonlinear finite element analysis
Dear mathematicians: This old AfC submission needs a lead and some rewriting, but is this a notable topic, and should the page be kept and improved instead of being deleted as a stale draft? —Anne Delong (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Delete. The topic is already better covered by Finite element method and related articles, and this stub adds nothing of interest. —Quondum 19:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- I'd keep it. I agree this is a notable topic. Perhaps I am missing something, but nonlinear finite elements aren't covered Finite element method, as far as I can tell. We do have a good Wikiversity course on Nonlinear finite elements, which suggests that there is plenty of material out there upon which to base an article. This article only seems to cover geometric nonlinearities; there are material nonlinearities and boundary nonlinearities as well. --Mark viking (talk) 21:04, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Well, if nonlinear finite elements aren't covered, the material could be added so that it is covered, or it could be its own topic, with a link to it from the other article. This is assuming that Quondum doesn't point out where it's already covered. If it's to be a separate topic, someone will have to write a lead summary for it (my math is too rusty). —Anne Delong (talk) 21:24, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Beurling vs Beurling–Ahlfors transforms
The link Beurling transform redirects to Singular integral operators of convolution type#Beurling transform while Beurling–Ahlfors transform redirects to Grunsky matrix#Beurling transform. My understanding is that these are essentiually the same thing. What is the appropriate target? Deltahedron (talk) 18:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- I agree that the two redirects seem to refer to the same transform. Singular integral operators of convolution type#Beurling transform is a bogus target; it looks like it should be Singular integral operators of convolution type#Beurling transform in the complex plane. Given that the section Grunsky matrix#Beurling transform refers to Singular integral operators of convolution type as the main article, it seems reasonable to have both Beurling transform and Beurling–Ahlfors transform redirect to Singular integral operators of convolution type#Beurling transform in the complex plane.. --Mark viking (talk) 21:16, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- They are the same according to Hamilton, D.H. (2002). "Area distortion of quasiconformal mappings". In Kühnau, R. (ed.). Handbook of complex analysis: geometric function theory. Volume 1. Amsterdam: North Holland. p. 158. ISBN 0-444-82845-1. Zbl 1074.30016.
{{cite book}}: Check|url=value (help). Deltahedron (talk) 21:27, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- They are the same according to Hamilton, D.H. (2002). "Area distortion of quasiconformal mappings". In Kühnau, R. (ed.). Handbook of complex analysis: geometric function theory. Volume 1. Amsterdam: North Holland. p. 158. ISBN 0-444-82845-1. Zbl 1074.30016.
Modular exponentiation
We have long-standing articles at Modular exponentiation and exponentiation by squaring. (They should probably be merged, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.) Recently, a new editor has written a third article, Discrete exponential function, that covers much of the same material. He has rather persistently linked to it from other articles, such as Discrete logarithm. I have proposed a merge, but the editor refuses to respond to any kind of discussion. So we could use some input from the community in this little knot of articles. Mgnbar (talk) 21:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Natural number
A new editor is insisting on major changes to the lead of natural number without waiting for consensus. Please take a look. --Trovatore (talk) 04:57, 5 October 2014 (UTC)