Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2016/Dec

New article needs expert eyes

Hi. Could someone take a look at Zonal wavenumber. It's a new article, and I would have added a project to the talk page, but am even unsure which wikiproject is the most appropriate. Thanks. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 12:41, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

@One15969: It looks like it should go under WP:WikiProject Meteorology. The article (besides the specific mathematics) comports with the definition provided at the external link (provided you search for the phrase therein first). --Izno (talk) 13:05, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree and added the meteorology wikiproject. --Mark viking (talk) 20:49, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Two things requiring understanding of mathematics are in this article. One was the equality

$k={\frac {2\pi r\cos \varphi }{\lambda }},$

which is correct. For the other I created a link to dimensionless quantity. I also did several other edits. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:54, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

New or newly categorized articles at User:Mathbot/Changes to mathlists

December 1, 2016

Removed Montesinos link (is a redirect to Pretzel link)

Added Hundred Fowls Problem

Added Theta*

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Mathematicians:added David Gauld (mathematician)

Mathematicians:added Eleanor Pairman

Mathematicians:added Kevin M. Short

Mathematicians:added Natashia Boland

November 30, 2016

Removed Santangelo field (article deleted/does not exist)

Added Suanfa tongzong

Added Zhang Qiujian Suanjing

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Mathematicians:removed Peter Whittle

Mathematicians:added Rick Jardine

November 29, 2016

Removed Alternating map (is a redirect to Alternating multilinear map)

Removed Deligne conjecture (disambiguation) (article deleted/does not exist)

Added Alternating multilinear map

Added Chinese Zhusuan

Added Graded-commutative ring

Added Jaina seven-valued logic

Added Nine-dimensional space

Added Ten-dimensional space

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Mathematicians:added Cheng Dawei

Mathematicians:added Peter Whittle (mathematician)

November 28, 2016

Added Crackling noise

Added Graded-symmetric algebra

Added MathSciNet

Added Ramanujan Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics

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Mathematicians:added Bryan Creed Jack

Mathematicians:added Peter Hislop

November 27, 2016

Added Test set

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November 26, 2016

Added Anviksiki

Added Borell–TIS inequality

Added Three spheres inequality

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Mathematicians:removed Maximilien Marie de Ficquelmont

Mathematicians:added Robert M. Hayes

November 25, 2016

Removed Malcev operation (is a redirect to Heap (mathematics))

Removed Purplemath (article deleted/does not exist)

Removed Risk limiting post-election audit (is a redirect to Risk-limiting audit)

Removed Santangelo Field (S-Field) mathematics (is a redirect to Santangelo field)

Added Annales de Gergonne

Added Notakto

Added Risk-limiting audit

Added Santangelo field

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Mathematicians:added Kim Thomas

November 24, 2016

Removed Complex vector space (disambiguation) (article deleted/does not exist)

Added Carry-less product

Added Fibonacci nim

Added Santangelo Field (S-Field) mathematics

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Mathematicians:added Alfred Inselberg

Michael Hardy (talk) 02:56, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the update! -- Taku (talk) 03:07, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages

Greetings WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2016/Dec Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

• Fix and improve Mr.Z-bot's popular pages report

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 18:03, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

New or newly categorized articles at User:Mathbot/Changes to mathlists

December 7, 2016

Removed Ten-dimensional space (is a redirect to String theory)

Added Low-complexity art

Added Xiahou Yang suanjing

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Mathematicians:removed James McMahon (educator)

Mathematicians:added Albert Aflitunov

Mathematicians:added Albert Aflitunov Ptolemy

Mathematicians:added Edmund Alfred Cornish

Mathematicians:added Eric Stephen Barnes

December 6, 2016

Removed National Centre for Physics (is a redirect to Abdus Salam Centre for Physics)

Added Abdus Salam Centre for Physics

Added Erdős–Ulam problem

Added Mediation-driven attachment (MDA) model

Added Rayleigh's equation (fluid dynamics)

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Mathematicians:added Johann Friedrich Schultz

December 5, 2016

Removed 0-1 quadratic knapsack problem (is a redirect to quadratic knapsack problem)

Removed Box-Jenkins

Removed Box–Jenkins (is a redirect to Box–Jenkins method)

Added 1727 (number)

Added Blockchain (database)

Added Box–Jenkins method

Added Quadratic knapsack problem

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Mathematicians:added Chi-Wang Shu

Mathematicians:added James McMahon (mathematician)

December 4, 2016

Removed Longstaff–Schwartz model (is a redirect to Short-rate_model)

Removed Normal form (bifurcation theory) (is a redirect to Normal form (dynamical systems))

Removed Parker Square (article deleted/does not exist)

Added Box–Jenkins

Added Lukacs Distinguished Professor

Added Normal form (dynamical systems)

Added Spike-triggered covariance

Added WinBUGS

Added Wucao suanjing

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Mathematicians:added Xinwen Zhu

Mathematicians:added Xinyi Yuan

December 3, 2016

Removed Calculus I (is a redirect to Calculus)

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Mathematicians:removed Eleanor Pairman (article deleted/does not exist)

Mathematicians:added Colin W. Clark

December 2, 2016

Added Twisted sheaf

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Michael Hardy (talk) 20:24, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Draft:International Fall Workshops on Geometry and Physics

Please assist the draft author to get this draft into acceptable shape. It seems to be a notable topic but the main problem is the apparent lack of independent sources. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:25, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

GA nomination

I have nominated Representation theory of the Lorentz group for good article rating. Partly because I think it might be good enough, but mostly to see whether a technical article actually can achieve GA status. YohanN7 (talk) 11:09, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks — I've gotten a few through but it's always good to see more of these. At a quick glance, I think you're likely to get dinged for numerous unsourced paragraphs — you might want to find a few more footnotes to add to fill the gaps there. Also, the QFT and open string links go to disambiguation pages and should be fixed. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:54, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Disambiguation done. Yes, referencing is a never ending task. It is not always easy, especially for the section on infinite-dimensional reps. By the way, is there to your knowledge a good reference on the Riemann P-functions? My google/google scholar searches give little, and one of the references I use for that section is extremely off-topic (but reliable). YohanN7 (talk) 10:09, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Probably, the closest precedent is Quantum electrodynamics (see also Talk:Quantum electrodynamics/GA1). Boris Tsirelson (talk) 20:07, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I have glanced at that one. But, alas, the technical/(familiarity to the casual reader) ratio is much higher here. YohanN7 (talk) 10:48, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm seeing at least two glaring issues:

1. WP:MOSCOLLAPSE in the introductory section. If the material is actually vital to the topic (and I'm not sure it is), then it should not be collapsed. If it is not vital, refer to next list item and cut the size of this content.
2. WP:SIZE. The article currently sits at 200kb, giving quite a number of other articles a run for their money for largest article. Consider WP:SPLITING some of the content.

There's a third issue, less-glaring, with the self referential tone of the last paragraph of the lead--you could toss it and no one would suffer greatly. The note about notes is really just discussing normal behavior for Wikipedia; the note about conventions might be useful but isn't WP:LEAD material; and a summary of the introduction should appear in the lead elsewhere above the last paragraph of the lead.

I think issue #2 is enough to cause problems as a GAN, but I believe the failure to observe WP:LEAD might be a failed GA candidacy, since that is one of the criteria for GA. --Izno (talk) 20:31, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

For your item one: Principles clash. There is item (a) of criterion (1) in the list of GA criteria; the prose is clear and concise. This is for a highly technical articles nearly impossible, while keeping it accessible to a wide audience and at the same time not bore the seasoned reader. Per WP:TECHNICAL, I have tried to write a "one level down" introduction that I put in a collapse box. Yes, this is absolutely vital for someone unfamiliar with the topic, but due to size considerations, and of consideration of the typical seasoned reader (for whom the section is redundant rather than vital), I put it in a hide box.

For your item two: Again principles clash. This clash is between item (3a) in the GA criteria list, which is about broad coverage, and WP:SIZE. Since size is not a GA criterion, and since, when probing before the nomination, I have been advised to keep things in rather that out (and actually include more subtopics, not fewer), the decision is easy. But I feel sorry for the poor sod that will actually be doing the review. If done properly, the reviewer must read the whole thing, from beginning to end Failing the article due to its size would be a failure on part of the reviewer, not the article.

Your third item needs consideration. It is not without reason that the last paragraph is there. People have (repeatedly) asked for an early pointer to the notation used in the article. (It is not uncommon for books to have the structure foreword, then notation, and then the table of contents.) I also think that this is a very good spot to steer the casual reader to the "one-level-down" introduction (and steer the seasoned reader away from it). But I'll definitely cut out the note about notes. YohanN7 (talk) 09:50, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

In other words, I need more convincing before making major changes along the lines you suggest. YohanN7 (talk) 10:12, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll try and respond sometime in the next week or so, but I'm on mobile only for that timeframe, so depending on how long this conversation gets, I might decline to respond until the middle of next week. Already I'm thinking I'll be writing much in discussion, so indeed I might wait until I have a proper keyboard. --Izno (talk) 11:18, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

There's absolutely no hurry. To be honest, I am temporarily quite fed up with the article as I have been editing it intensely for a couple of weeks. YohanN7 (talk) 13:20, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, the wait for a GA reviewer to come along can be months long, so hopefully that should give you a refreshing break from it. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:40, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Regarding length: It should be possible to reduce the length with a bit of copy editing. I also think it's a little too detailed and textbookish in places. Better summary style will reduce the length as well. Parts are not really specific to the Lorentz group (the section on the Lie group-Lie algebra correspondence, eg), and (in my opinion) could do with some culling. Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:42, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the Lie group-Lie algebra correspondence could be cut out. Where to place it? It is not general enough for Lie correspondence article, and it is too specific for matrix exponential. Perhaps matrix Lie group would be a good home for it. Can you be more precise on which sections are too detailed and textbookish? YohanN7 (talk) (10:49, 23 December 2016‎)

Please explain the "ring in equal to" symbol

Hello. I'm an admin at Wiktionary. About this symbol, here linked to the Wiktionary entry: ≖ (U+2256, "RING IN EQUAL TO"). The Wiktionary entry is under discussion and could be deleted.

Discussion link: wikt:WT:RFV#≖. When the discussion ends, it's going to be archived at wikt:Talk:≖.

I have two requests or questions, if it's OK:

1. How is the symbol used? Could someone please write a short usage definition for Wiktionary? For example: "The symbol indicates equality in the context X."
2. As per the policy wikt:WT:CFI, can we find three independent durably-archived works where the symbol is used in the stated sense? The discussion already links to a few works:
   • Page 5 of http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~razborov/files/free_group.pdf (group theory)
   • https://books.google.com.br/books?id=3IlVAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22graphical+equality%22+free+groups&q=%22graphical+equality%22&redir_esc=y
   • http://www.mathunion.org/ICM/ICM1983.1/Main/icm1983.1.0415.0424.ocr.pdf
   • https://books.google.com.br/books?id=Rux2GsGApMsC&pg=PA227&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false (relation of delimitation)
   • https://books.google.com.br/books?id=qhJmBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA241&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false (Boolean equality)
   • Other works might be added in the ongoing discussion.

Thanks in advance. Daniel Carrero (talk) 22:21, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

This symbol has been used to denote graphical equality, or the literal equality, of two strings of symbols, which is a type of formal equality used in free semigroup theory, monoid theory, and free group theory. But I think this symbol is fairly rare. More common notations for graphical equality are an equals sign with a dot above it, or just a simple equals sign. --Mark viking (talk) 00:48, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Another GA nomination

Georg Cantor's first set theory article fell short last time it was nominated as a "Good Article". It has been improved a lot since then, with the various "Good Article" criteria in mind. Maybe I'll nominate it in the next few days unless someone else beats me to it. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:24, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

John Penn Mayberry

Could someone please take a look at this page and let me know if it counts as mainstream and if not how far out of mainstream?Naraht (talk) 18:26, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, I'm no philosopher, and I know little about the philosophy of mathematics. But he says things like, "I am convinced that this operationalist conception of natural number is the central fallacy that underlies all our thinking about the foundations of mathematics. It is not confined to heretics but is shared by the orthodox Cantorian majority.” This puts him far, far outside the mainstream. It seems to be a rejection of the standard axiom of infinity in Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory. The axiom of infinity is independent of the remaining axioms of ZF; in particular it is not fallacious.

The more I read about his "arithmoi", the more it sounds like he is simply repeating the fundamental observations of set theory, draped in his own esoteric jargon and sometimes without proper attribution to his predecessors. I am not impressed. Ozob (talk) 03:14, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

But then, being unimpressed and thinking they're reinventing the wheel is a common reaction of mathematicians to philosophers of mathematics, so not necessarily informative for determining how far from mainstream he might be. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:42, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Does it mean two disjoint, incompatible mainstreams (one of math, the other of its philosophy)? Boris Tsirelson (talk) 05:40, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

It depends on the mainstream you are considering. Mayberry studied the foundations of set theory from a philosophical point of view and his book on the matter has been reviewed in a number of reputable journals, e.g. [1]. I'd say that it is probably considered a mainstream work in the philosophy community. Mathematically, he embraces the cardinal POV of a set as a finite collection and rejects the ordinal, inductive POV. This places the work outside the mathematical mainstream as a sort of finitism and indeed Mayberry is mentioned in that article. --Mark viking (talk) 10:25, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

A good answer, thanks. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 11:47, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

No one has commented on this yet, but it seems worth mentioning that as a biographical article John Penn Mayberry is in really terrible shape. --JBL (talk) 14:25, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

OP here. I agree that as a Wikipedia article, specifically as a biographical article it is in terrible shape. A split into a biographical article and an article about his theories might be possible. I was mostly wondering if it was a Time cube level and the answer here seems to be that it isn't but rather is somewhat more similar to either the early works on Non-Euclidean geometry or even what Surreal numbers might have been considered if people less well known than Conway and Knuth had come up with the concept.Naraht (talk) 15:50, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I read the review linked above and, to my surprise, found it interesting. Based upon what I read there, I must now retract my earlier assessment. Mayberry is a philosopher, and his work is a branch of finitism. His criticism of "operationalism" as "fallacious" is not meant mathematically but philosophically. In more mathematical terms, it seems to me that he rejects infinite recursion and induction. Mathematically, he is studying highly restricted fragments of Peano arithmetic. His "arithmoi" are not sets in the sense of ZFC (or other axiomatic set theories) but are related objects which he considers to have firmer philosophical foundations (it sounds like he is some kind of realist).

The current biographical article does him a great disservice. It makes him sound halfway to being a crackpot, which he certainly does not deserve. Ozob (talk) 14:00, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Distinct?

Do we really need the article Distinct (mathematics)? It was recently moved from Distinct, which has resulted in this discussion. Paul August ☎ 22:00, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Functional differential equation

Incredibly, we've never had an article titled Functional differential equation until this month. Probably it could use some work. In particular, there is the question of which other articles should link to it. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:23, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Split List of nonlinear partial differential equations into two

The link Nonlinear partial differential equation redirects to List of nonlinear partial differential equations. Shouldn't these be two articles - one as a list article, one as an actual article? If there are no objections I'll split in the next few days. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 09:18, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I think you should start by making a section in partial differential equation, which barely mentions the subject (and only in a solutions subsection) and redirect the link in question to that new section, until such time as a full article can be written per WP:SPLIT. (I realize that the topic is certainly notable but this way we can grow our treatment of the topic slowly without making a stub or worrying about a silly AFD.) --Izno (talk) 10:50, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Good idea. A split just seemed simpler and could save having to transfer the nonlinear content material out of partial differential equation into its own article. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 12:09, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

I've split them and done a bit of copy-editing. But a remaining task is this: Which links to the two articles should link to which of the two? That shouldn't be hard. I'll be back to work on it if no one beats me to it. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:48, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Good work both of you. M∧Ŝc²ħεИ_τlk 09:25, 31 December 2016 (UTC)