User:Paul Carpenter/Mathematics Is Not

This is a work in progress, please do tear it to pieces, but be nice about it and make suggestions on the talk page so I can make my points presentable before moving them from namespace.

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Wikipedia contains many articles on mathematics and subjects relating to mathematics. This ranges from mathematicians and the history of mathematics to some very advanced and fascinating results in all areas of pure, applied and recreational mathematics.

Wikipedia - not existing purely to cover one subject area - also contains many more articles on things that are not mathematics nor are they related to mathematics. In most cases it should seem obvious whether an article is related to mathematics or not, but in other cases there may be some confusion.

If you are contributing to an article that has some content relating to mathematics in some way then you may be tempted to add it to a category such as mathematics articles or even adding a {{maths rating}} to the talk page that will mark the article as within the scope of the Mathematics Wikiproject. That's great - doing so brings the article to the attention of many other editors who are interested in mathematical topics and can help you build the article into something special. However, erroneously doing this to articles which are not mathematical in nature results in nothing but confusion to both editors and more importantly, readers.

The presence of numbers does not imply the presence of mathematics

Numbers, amongst other things, feature pretty heavily in mathematics. However, this does not mean that everything centred around numbers should be regarded as mathematics.

Please do not add an article to a mathematics category, wikiproject or portal simply because numbers play a significant role in that article.

Individual numbers often have properties that are defined mathematically, the number twelve for instance has many but that does not make the article on the number twelve a mathematical topic - instead it falls firmly into the scope of the Numbers Wikiproject. If a number arises naturally in mathematics, then it is a Mathematical constant and should be put into the relevant category - otherwise it is not a topic of mathematical interest.

Numerical data (such as demographics, or the results of a highly notable survey) should not be considered mathematics either, it may be statistics - but unless it lead to the study of statistical methods - it is not mathematical.

Numerology

Numerology is the practice of associating numbers with spiritual, religious or occult ideas, it can be regarded as pseudomathematics since at times it looks like mathematics to a casual observer but since it is not deductive in nature nor does it result in the production of theorems - it should not be mistaken for mathematics.

Numerology and mathematics may sometimes overlap, since some topics are of interest to both mathematicians and numerologists such as digital roots and magic squares. This does not mean that numerology, numerologists or anything else that has not been studied by mathematicians should not be regarded as mathematics or categorised as mathematics by wikipedians.

If you are editing an article relating to numerology then consider adding it to one of these Wikiprojects:

But only consider adding to it the mathematics Wikiproject if it is definitely of mathematical significance.