Talk:Joseph-Louis Lagrange

Ethnicity ?

Citizenship is not about ethnicity. Italy didn't exist in 1736. Lagrange was born in Turin part of States of Savoy. He should be addressed as Savoyard or Piedmontese (principality of Piedmont). Julius Caesar is addressed as Roman not as Italian.

Otherwise, it should be mentioned that he was of French descent from his father and mother, in particular descendant of Descartes. I added a reference from the french Senate to prove it : https://www.senat.fr/evenement/archives/D30/lagrange.html

Speaking of ethnicity, both parents' last names are French. Lagrange signed his name 'Lagrange', which means 'the barn' in French.

91.168.147.106 (talk) 21:57, 12 December 2020 (UTC)xxx

Formost mathemetician?

In 1761, Lagrange stood without a rival as the foremost mathematician living.

Greater than Leonhard Euler?

Nothing will be gained by a long discussion of mathematical greatness.

Lagrange Citizenship

The issue of Lagrange's nationality/ethnicity has been discussed at length some years ago (for example here ). First of all, the word "Italian" has nothing to do with the existence of an Italian state, but with the ethnicity. An "Italian nation" has existed at least since the 13th century, and there is general consensus about it. Dante was Italian, Leonardo da Vinci (another famous person who spent the last years of his life in France) Italian, and so on, as much as Luther was German before the birth of a German national state. Back to Lagrange, he was Italian, born in Italy, moved to Germany and finally to France. But the main point is not this, but that the mention of an ethnicity in a biography is regulated by WP:ETHNICITY, a part of the manual of style. In the lead of a biography should be mentioned the ethnicity of a person when he/she became notable, and not the others. In the case of Lagrange this is the Italian one, because when he left Turin for Berlin he was already known without any doubt as one of the most important mathematicians in Europe. Adopting the same criterium, Riccardo Giacconi, Nobel prize for physics born in Genoa, for Wikipedia is not Italian, but American, since he moved to the U.S. before he discovered anything. One can agree or not about this way of defining the ethnicity, and can try to change it (I did some years ago, but without success), but the important thing it is that this is part of a guideline, and as such can be enforced (the last discussion about Lagrange ended with a block of the other person) and spares a lot of discussions and edit warring. Bye, Alex2006 (talk) 06:20, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

D.Lazard: Of course Lagrange became a French citizen, was a senator of the French Empire, and asked for the annexation of his homeland - Piedmont - to the Empire. None contests it. But, as you can read above, there is a Guideline of the manual of Style that should be respected, and this is the only reason why we write here only "Italian". If you are not happy with this guideline, we can open a thread on the Manual of Style discussion page and we can try to change it (I am not happy with it either). Alex2006 (talk) 10:13, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

To editor Alessandro57: Firstly you seem to interpret a guideline as a policy. Secondly, when you refer to a guideline, you must not misinterpret it, as it is the case here. In fact MOS:CONTEXTBIO says The opening paragraph should usually provide context for the activities that made the person notable. In most modern-day cases this will be the country of which the person is a citizen, national or permanent resident. Applied here, this means clearly that French citizenship must appear in the first sentence. So, I'll revert you again, as, for the moment, there is a consensus (two against one) against your opinion. D.Lazard (talk) 11:30, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

There is a long standing description of Lagrange as an Italian in this article, which is in accordance with WP:ETHNICITY. If anybody wishes to change it, he or she must first reach a new general consensus on this matter. Sapphorain (talk) 12:03, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

To editor Sapphorain: thanks a lot for your comment, which shows that this article is still on your watchpage. :-) I propose to all of you to open a joint thread on the Lead Section discussion page to change the WP:OPENPARA guideline, which for sure as it is written now is suboptimal. I tried four year ago but have been plainly ignored, maybe with three people it will be different. 12:15, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Again, I disagree that the first sentence is in accordance with WP:ETHNICITY. The targets of WP:ETHNICITY and MOS:CONTEXTBIO are the same, and both contain the above quotation. He was from French and Italian descent. During the 26 last years of his life, he was a French citizen, a permanent resident of Paris (France), and occupied positions that are normally reserved to citizens (such as senator). Beside his scientific production (which is not specifically linked to a geographical or ethnical context), it is also notable for activities that are specifically linked to France (Member of the sénat conservateur, member of the founder board of the Bureau des Longitudes, one of the five members of the French commission that has elaborated the metric system (see History of the metric system), etc. So, mentioning only its Italian citizenship (and descent) in the first sentence goes against WP:ETHNICITY but also against WP:NPOV, which is a policy. D.Lazard (talk) 14:12, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree with D.Lazard. Not mentioning the French-ness of Lagrange in the opening sentence leaves us with an unbalanced summary of who he was. Attic Salt (talk) 15:49, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

To D.Lazard and Attic Salt: I am sorry that none of you read, or maybe understood, what I wrote above. Here the problem is not the "frenchness" of Lagrange (I know the biography of Lagrange quite well, and I knew already what DLazard writes about its activities in France), but a guideline of the manual of style: four year ago I went to ANI for this, and the outcome was clear. Please read the discussion at the ANI (I put the link above, but maybe you did not notice it), and understand the reasons why a double nationality/ethnicity in the lead presently is NOT allowed. The right way to change the lead is a change in the guideline. Why don't we go all four to the manual of style discussion page and try to change this part of the guideline bringing the arguments that DLazard brought here (forgetting please the french descent, since here we are talking about a great - grandparent out of eight, and if we would apply everywhere the same benchmark we would have three - four ethnicities for each American biography's lead, and near Napoleon we should write "Italian" - ;-))? Bye Alex2006 (talk) 10:30, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Again, a guideline is not a policy, and, even in the case of a policy, WP:IAR says "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. So your administative arguments are totally irrelevant here. I had a look at the previous discussion. It was not very conclusive, as being not formally closed. Among arguments, in favor of your view, one is relevant: It is against having two citizenships linked by a hyphen. I agree with this. I have thus edited the article by writing "Italian and French", which is an unambiguous and corresponds to article content. Again, there is no rule that can forbid that, and, if there is one, it it worth to ignore it here. By the way, Napoleon was never Italian, it was Corsican and French. D.Lazard (talk) 12:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Hallo D.Lazard, Sapphorain, Attic Salt since actually I am not happy with this rule too, what do you think if we try to use here my ignored proposal at the manual of style? I edited the article, but feel free to change it if you don't think that it is ok. I think that in such cases there should be a difference between ethnicity and nationality. The acquisition of the French nationality changed the nationality of Lagrange, but not its ethnicity, that's why we use "naturalised". BTW, this de-potentiates also the main objection of the creator of the Ethnicity Rule in ANI, who affirms that one cannot be A and B at the same time. We separate the definitions, ethnic and national. P.S. About Napoleon, a Corsican ethnicity was born (slowly) after the annexation to France: before 1768, Corsica was a region of Italy, and the Corsican were ethnically Italian. You can read the letters of Pasquale Paoli about it, they are very instructive. There is also a lot of good literature in French about the genesis of the Corsican identity: a good introduction is in "La Guide de la Corse", by George Ravis-Giorndani, who is an ethnologist. Bye, Alex2006 (talk) 15:50, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Interest in maths when 17

I find it pretty crazy that a guy this intelligent who made such contributions to science only showed interest at 17. This is a clear example of late bloomer Kwiky (talk) 09:19, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Importance/location on page of the Lagrange character in Arcaea

There is a single-sentence paragraph at the end of the main section on Lagrange's page that states:

In 2020, mobile rhythm game Arcaea posthumously released a character named after him for the Arcaea Song Contest 2020 Grand Prize.

To me, that seems like an incredibly trivial detail about Lagrange. It has no business being in the main portion of his article. Note that the game in question -- Arcaea -- is not a particularly popular or culturally relevant game, as evidenced by how brief its own Wikipedia article is. It's a stub, despite being a game that was first released more than 6 years ago. Perhaps this fact best belongs in a new section near the bottom of the article, like a "Legacy" or "References in popular culture" section? Regardless, it certainly doesn't belong where it currently is.

I don't feel that I have enough experience to make a change as large as moving this/creating an entirely new section for an article this large and important / about such an important figure. I'm hoping that someone else here better knows where this should go.

Any thoughts? Phatmatt12188 (talk) 20:18, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I was looking up Lagrange and that sentence struck me as trivial.

Delete it. 74.87.54.86 (talk) 03:08, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

References