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The Signpost: 3 January 2011

AGM log formula

Can you check the formula you added here for the natural log from the arithmetic-geometric mean? I just changed it in logarithm, as it appears to conflict with the more complete formula in natural logarithm -- unless I'm just missing why you've got the 2^m in the denominator... Dicklyon (talk) 06:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Hm, looks like I should have written 2^{2-m} instead of 2^{2+m}. Good catch! In the current revision, though, I don't understand the logic anymore: what does the last bit "with m chosen so that p bits of precision is attained." mean? I would prefer the previous wording (of course, with the correct formula). Jakob.scholbach (talk) 12:02, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't know, I don't have the sources visible. Compare to the natural logarithm article and see if you can fix it. Looks like m is chosen to give you the number of bits you desire. Dicklyon (talk) 18:27, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 January 2011

GA Logarithm

I have placed your nomination on hold and am looking forward to working with you. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 05:42, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jakob!
Charles Sanders Peirce extended Gustav Fechner's work on psychophysics, to argue strongly that a logarithmic scale describes human response to stimuli. In particular, he argued that the logarithm of the likelihood was a natural way to quantify the strength of evidence for a proposition (using a binomial model); see the end of the article on the likelihood function for references. (Fred Robert's monograph on measurement theory has a graphical display of various Fechnerian logarithmic scales, with estimated parameters listed, for various stimuli.)
You must be doubly busy. (Don't worry about the Shapley-Folkman lemma: A number of other editors have helped a lot the last days.)
Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for all of your work. The article passed. Congratulations. Racepacket (talk) 03:59, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 January 2011

Shapley–Folkman lemma

Hej Jakob!

I trust that you have recovered from your cold. I have a cold, now. :(

Responding to your GA-review of the Shapley–Folkman lemma article, I removed the most egregious violations of the Manual of Style and did a lot of other changes, some of which are noted on the article talk-page (transcluded from GA review) and in the edit summaries.

Thanks again for your great suggestions and guidance. I appreciate your patience and kind explanations of WP MOS matters.

Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 01:58, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar of diligence


 The Barnstar of Diligence
for your exemplary and indeed heroic Good Article Review of the Shapley–Folkman lemma. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 01:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you! Jakob.scholbach (talk) 19:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Lead of exterior algebra

Hi Jakob,

I know you're an algebraist with a talent for making articles accessible to a wider audience (or at least "better" in many different ways). Could you have a look at exterior algebra, especially the new lead, please? This is an article that I have been wanting to bring up to scratch for some time, but there doesn't really to have been much broad interest in doing so until now following a discussion at WT:WPM. I'm a little worried that the new lead runs afowl of the lead guidelines (that the lead is supposed to summarize the article), but I suppose that is sometimes relaxed to various degrees, and at any rate there were rather vociferous complaints that the lead needed to contain more information that would be useful to a "non-expert" reader. I would value any comments that you could make. Thanks, Sławomir Biały (talk) 01:17, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Gian-Carlo Rota wrote an article called "The exterior algebra of invariant theory", which might interest you all (2nd person plural). Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 19:24, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments Jakob. I'll respond later on the discussion page in more detail. Best, Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:59, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I have glanced at the accessibility discussion at WT:WPM. Don't take these accusations personally! Even if there is lots to improve in exterior algebra, it is a well-done article and we could be happy if all our pages were this detailed etc. On a more general level I feel that many of the general-theory-makers don't seem to engage in writing outstanding articles, which seems to limit their qualification to bash other editors. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:45, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
The discussion there had its tense moments for me, but my anxiety was unrelated to the current discussion of the exterior algebra lead. (Indeed, it seems like a relief to be working in a definite constructive direction, rather than engaging in pointless abstract debate about how things ought to be with our articles.) Also, the criticisms of the lead of exterior algebra are difficult to take personally, since part of me agrees with many of them. The current draft is something of an experiment in a different writing style for me. It seems to have been more successful than I would have thought, although less so than I could have hoped. Thanks again for the comments. I have edited based on these, and responded to them. Best, Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:47, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 24 January 2011

Math formatting

{{math}} (the template I have been using) is not the same thing as <math> (the formatting code you are complaining about). It does not use png images; it merely prevents line breaks, and sets the variables in a nicer serif font than the default sans-serif (in which it can be very difficult to distinguish l from I from |). —David Eppstein (talk) 21:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC):

I personally dislike what you call "nicer". I don't want to start again one of these fruitless formatting discussions, but I think it is fair standard not to change the whole article's formatting without talking? Jakob.scholbach (talk) 21:56, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
If you want the same effect with the standard Wikipedia fonts and indistinguishable Il| characters, replace the {{math}} with {{nowrap}}. It ends up looking the same as using &nbsp; everywhere, but I think it's easier to edit that way. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Euclid's proof of the infinitude of primes

This was an extraordinarily bad edit. That Euclid's proof was by contradiction is false and is unfair to Euclid. It is true that quite a few respectable mathematicians assert this. Dirichlet was one of those. G. H. Hardy was another, although he changed his view on this, I suspect under the influence of his co-author Wright. That proves that mathematicians aren't really all that good at history. And maybe most historians aren't so good at mathematics, so they don't work on this either. My joint paper with Catherine Woodgold demolishes the myth and also shows why the proof by contradiction is inferior to the one that Euclid wrote. I've cited it in the article. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

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