Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2010/Jun

Template:Mathematics portal

FYI, {{Mathematics portal}} has been nominated for deletion. 70.29.210.155 (talk) 05:20, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

To clarify a bit, someone nominated a whole bunch of templates that have been superseded by {{portal}}. Math is one of them.--RDBury (talk) 19:57, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

To clarify even a bit more: that someone unlinked these templates, then nominated them for deletion as "unused". After an outcry by other editors, the wikiprojects affected began to be notified. Arcfrk (talk) 07:57, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

This template has now been replaced by {{portal|Mathematics}}. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 03:51, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Links and articles for the uninitiated

There are many people in this world who are ready, willing and able to learn about mathematics. Wikipedia should be a great place to do this. It isn't. Math articles in Wikipedia are like a walled fortress: if you aren't already on the inside, there's no way in. Other highly-technical areas of study (like genetics, for example) are easy to navigate. Unfamiliar terms link to other articles that either clear up the mystery or at least set the reader on a path to understanding the material. Disambiguation pages don't slow you down too much because the context of your inquiry is usually pretty clear. With math, the problem is the symbols. They are often left undefined, which may be fine if you are aware of certain chalk-saving conventions used in math classes, but this is Wikipedia, the place where people go, who DON'T already know. I'm not asking anyone to start dumming down all the math articles. It would just be nice if when a symbol is used that the non-mathematician doesn't know how to read (let alone understand) if it could be linked to an article specifically related to how it's being used, as opposed to a hopelessly ambiguous disambiguation page, or worse, no link at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.9.33 (talk) 03:38, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

What are specific examples of undefined symbols/disambiguation pages that prompted your request? Arcfrk (talk) 04:02, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it would be nice if the less common symbols could be linked when they're used in mathematical expressions. Unfortunately, the limitations of the current method of displaying formulas used on Wikipedia means that isn't currently possible. In the meantime, perhaps Table of mathematical symbols is some help? Qwfp (talk) 07:04, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

While it's true that there are quite a few math articles that could do a better job of explaining a subject to those who aren't familiar with the notation and terminology, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. First WP is meant to be a reference, not a textbook. So while a WP article should cover the facts about a subject, it's not really meant to be used to learn the subject from scratch. Second, some subjects, especially in mathematics, are so technical by nature that it's reasonable to expect a certain level of knowledge from the reader. Not to say that there aren't some articles that have unnecessary jargon and need to be rewritten. In any case, it's not enough to simply put a general statement here and say we need to do better. If you found an article confusing or unclear then you need to indicate which one and what you didn't understand; there are are plenty of people here who are eager to make articles as understandable as possible but as far as I know none of them are mind readers.--RDBury (talk) 10:11, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

+1--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:47, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikibooks and Wikiversity were set up for that purpose, though they are not as well supported as Wikipedia. There's quite a few other sites providing both a school and university level introduction to mathematics. Dmcq (talk) 20:06, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Have you seen Wikiversity Primary School Mathematics? Dmcq (talk) 06:50, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Nine-dimensional space

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nine-dimensional space. Don't just say Keep or Delete; give arguments. Michael Hardy (talk) 13:35, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Is there any reason why 9-spaces are more deserving of an article than 8 or 10-spaces? If so that should probably be brought up in the article. Paul Carpenter (talk) 17:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Additional opinions desired at Talk:Hilbert space

There is a question about whether or not the current article structure, of presenting Euclidean space as a detailed example of a Hilbert space before the definition as motivation, is a worthwhile structure, or whether to move it until after the definition. Comments are appreciated. Sławomir Biały (talk) 10:42, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

External Links to Web Calculators

Rubin and Ichbin disagree on the application of WP:ELNO rule #13 to external links to web calculators. The rule states "the link should be directly related to the subject of the article." Rubin contends that this rule requires that Wikipedia articles link only to web calculators where that page of the calculator's web site has functionality limited essentially to the scope of the linking Wikipedia article. Ichbin contends that the rule does not impose this requirement, and that imposing such a requirement would rule out links to many useful web calculators which implement multiple functions. The links which spawned this disagreement were to a general special functions calculator from specific special function articles and to a general measures of association calculator from the articles on specific measures of association.

The wording of this dispute is by mutual agreement between the parties.Ichbin-dcw (talk) 23:14, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Seems the relevant talk page is here --JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:41, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually there are more of them, so best to keep discussion centralised here. I would dispute the "useful" as the page linked to gives no indication what it does, how it works, with an ugly and confusing layout and very little functionality. It seems the purpose is to demonstrate an API/library, not provide a genuinely useful calculator (and even as an API demonstration it's a poor one as it's very slow, taking seconds to do even trivial calculations). So as well as WP:ELNO 13 it falls foul of number 4 or 5. And as your sole purpose here seems to be to add this site, and you have no seeming interest in improving articles in other ways, it looks like a WP:COI issue too.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Other issues may indeed also apply to the specifc case that spawned the discussion, but could we please clear up the application of rule #13? As I pointed out in conversations with Rubin, his intrepretation would seem to disallow links to the bluebit matrix claculator from the many different matrix decomposition articles that currently link to it. I, at least, have found that calculator and those links useful.Ichbin-dcw (talk) 00:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with JohnBlackburne that the calculator http://www.meta-numerics.net/Samples/FunctionCalculator.aspx under discussion is simply not good enough to link to. Any web calculator we link to should be at least as good as the wolfram functions site, which provides 2d and 3d plotting as well as evaluation, and has a separate page for each function. r.e.b. (talk) 00:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I am familiar with the Wolfram functions site; it's a great place for formulae and pretty good for graphs, but I don't know how to get it to do simple evaluations. Suppose I want to know Ai(2.13) to a few decimal places. How can I get that value from the Wolfram functions site?Ichbin-dcw (talk) 01:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Go to http://functions.wolfram.com/webMathematica/FunctionEvaluation.jsp?name=AiryAi r.e.b. (talk) 01:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! I was not aware of that! I withdraw the proposed links to the MN calculator page and propose adding links to the relevent Wolfram function evaluator pages.Ichbin-dcw (talk) 01:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

It might be slightly better to add links to Wolfram's main page for each function, such as http://functions.wolfram.com/Bessel-TypeFunctions/AiryAi/, as these have links to the evaluation and plotting pages. r.e.b. (talk) 01:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of those links, either. That looks like an excellent addition to the articles. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Baring further objections, I will add those links to the relevent special function articles. I am very happy to have a conensus resolution for those pages.

It looks like the Wolfram function site does evaluations for exponential integrals (e.g. gamma and erf) and Bessel-type functions (e.g. Y and Ai), but for some reason not for orthogonal polynomials. Am I wrong about that? The MN calculator isn't great for orthogonal polynomials (it doesn't do generalized versions) but I can't find much else. Any other suggestions there? There is also the question of statistical calculators, but perhaps that is best handled in another forum.Ichbin-dcw (talk) 02:09, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

For some weird reason, you can evaluate orthogonal polynomials if you look them up as hypergeometric functions, but not if you look them up as polynomials. r.e.b. (talk) 02:47, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The page http://dlmf.nist.gov/software/ might be useful for tracing down software for special function. r.e.b. (talk) 02:54, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

What I hope to acomplish is to give people a way to do a quick calculation without having to download and install full software packages like those listed there. That page might be a useful external link for the List of numerical libraries article, though.

Still, I am grateful to you for pointing it out, because I have been waiting for the DLMF to come online fully -- for the past ten years they have just had a couple example articles available -- and from your link I learned that they have!

By the way, I have added the links under discussion to the Bessel function and Airy function articles, in case anyone wants to take a look and critique the format.Ichbin-dcw (talk) 03:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not keen on links to calculators, I'd prefer to have some explanation or other content suitable for an encyclopaedia. As an example I would not like for instance a carpet artricle to link to something where it just calculated the amount of carpet one needed. If the carpet calculator was part of something larger that explained the workings and why though I'd think that was good. Dmcq (talk) 14:36, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Animated GIFs

I've noticed that many animated GIFs are displayed as static GIFs in articles. For many of the math related images the first frame isn't representative and doesn't illustrate the subject. For example, in the Cardioid article the lead image is supposed to show the curve being generated as a roulette. I just get a static picture of two circles which is useless. But the animated GIF in the roulette article appears correct. I assume this change to static is keep bandwidth under control, can anyone verify this? Also, can the image parameters be adjusted (e.g. make size smaller) to ensure that the image will be animated? I'd rather have a small image that makes sense rather than a large one that doesn't. Finally, it might be a good idea to keep an eye out for images that are obviously broken; maybe these can be fixed somehow.--RDBury (talk) 02:42, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I just went over our featured images and the following are now "broken":

• File:Shallow water waves.gif in Shallow water equations. Appears as a trapezoid.
• File:HypotrochoidOutThreeFifths.gif in Hypotrochoid. Appears as two circles.
• File:Mandelbrot sequence new.gif in Mandelbrot set. This is a long animation with a 24MB file so it should remain static. The caption says click to view the zoom.
• File:Color coded racetrack large channel.gif in Reflector (cellular automaton). I added to "Click to view animation." to the caption and you can argue that the the first frame is representative.

--RDBury (talk) 03:29, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

There has been a large amount of confusing discussion regarding animated gifs. See WP:VPT#GIF not animating and the links to earlier discussions that it contains. At one time I tried to summarize the conclusions: If an animation is more than 12.5M pixels total (width × height × number of frames), you get a single frame. If an animation is more than 12.5M pixels per frame, you get a thumberror. (I do not know if this summary is still accurate.) Johnuniq (talk) 03:44, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, at least now I know what the criterion is. So far I've found over a dozen math articles with broken GIFs, meaning the image no longer makes sense at all. There are a few more where the idea is still there but explanatory value is reduced. The one in the Hypotrochoid article is typical in that it's not that far over the limit and could probably be fixed by removing some of the frames.--RDBury (talk) 04:59, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

In some cases the problem can be fixed by making the thumbnail image size a simple multiple of the image size (e.g. exactly 1/2). -- Radagast3 (talk) 04:08, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

See Discrete_mathematics#Theoretical_computer_science for one which didn't work until I re-scaled it, although the same trick doesn't seem to work for Hypotrochoid. -- Radagast3 (talk) 04:11, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and try it on the articles I found. It's somewhat counterintuitive that making the size larger would fix the problem but whatever works. Thanks for finding this.--RDBury (talk) 00:03, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems that setting the image to any large value will work. The graphics loader won't expand the image to larger than its original size.--RDBury (talk) 00:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Images in lists

Over at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gallery of curves, the suggestion has been made that List of curves could be enhanced dramatically by making it a table that includes images of the curves (and, my own suggestion, maybe some notable properties of the curve). I think that List of surfaces, an article in much poorer shape, would also benefit from a similar treatment. I figured I would post here for comment. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:14, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

This is a more complex issue than one might think at first glance. I don't think an image would be appropriate for every entry, for example we don't have images for some of the curves. The ones we do have are in a variety of different styles so aesthetics would be an issue (as it is in "Gallery of curves"). There are quite a few entries on the list so adding an image for all of them would significantly affect load times as well. But images for selected entries would probably work.--RDBury (talk) 14:51, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Hyperbolic coordinates

FYI, Hyperbolic coordinates has been nominated for deletion. 76.66.193.224 (talk) 03:55, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Just a comment as the nominator. There are references for "Hyperbolic coordinates" as a subject but the article as it stands does not seem to come from any of them. I'd appreciated it if someone with some expertise on the subject could take a look and either add a reference that supports the material in the article or rewrite the article so it agrees with a standard reference. So far the responses have just been "keep" with no effort to show that what's in the article is supported in the literature.--RDBury (talk) 06:01, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Lambert's trinomial equation ?

A former article on Lambert's trinomial equation was deleted last December, apparently due to copyright problems. Previous "See also" links to this article at Johann Heinrich Lambert and Lambert W function now link to Trinomial, which is not useful, as it does not define Lambert's trinomial. I can't see anything useful in Google or Google Books. Does anyone know what Lambert's trinomial is ? Or should I simply remove those "See also" links ? Gandalf61 (talk) 11:52, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I presume it is the equation mentioned on p.2 of http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/research/tr/1993/03/W.pdf .Charles Matthews (talk) 12:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I have added that equation ($x=q+x^{m}$) to the trinomial article so that the "See also" links that point there now make some sort of sense. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Is this related to the Bring radical? JRSpriggs (talk) 05:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

JFM template

Template:JFM appears to be broken (it is not well documented, but the usual syntax for MR and a couple of variations didn't work). Does anyone know how to fix it? Unlike Zbl and MR databases, JFM is freely available. It also contains reviews of older articles (now cross-referenced from Zbl, modulo the caveat above). Arcfrk (talk) 12:07, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Should work fine now. Algebraist 12:12, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Knight's tour FP

FYI: The knights tour animation File:Knight's tour anim 2.gif was promoted to featured picture.--RDBury (talk) 05:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguating "lattice theory"

Lattice theory currently redirects to lattice (mathematics) which is a disambiguation page. A fairly large number of pages link to lattice theory, and therefore need disambiguation. Lattice (group) and lattice (order) seem to be the two most important items.

Doesn't the term lattice theory usually refer to the theory of certain kinds of posets? If so then that should redirect to lattice (order)? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

It used to redirect to lattice (order) until Justin W Smith (talk · contribs) changed it in April. Most of the links to it seem to intend the order-theoretic meaning, but there are exceptions: fermion doubling seems to intend lattice model (physics). Additionally there should probably be some linkage or possibly merger between the lattice (mathematics) dab page and the main lattice dab page. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:05, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I am not happy with that change at all. I think the primary meaning of "lattice theory" without further context is very clearly the theory of a certain type of posets. We could add a notice "Lattice theory redirects here for ... see ..." if the term is also used for unrelated things, or at most a disambiguation page under lattice theory. But the current situation is confusing. Hans Adler 16:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Hans, I think you're right. "Lattice theory" (emphasis added) would likely be in reference to lattice (order), with perhaps a few exceptions as David pointed out. I undid my change. Justin W Smith ^talk/_stalk 17:03, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

...and disambiguating "lattice" and naming articles.....

The Lattice disambiguation page lists lattice (group) and lattice (discrete subgroup) as separate independent items. The latter is a a generalization (not a special case as the name seems to suggest). So it seems we need to look at

• naming of these articles;
• organizing the disambiguation page; and
• links between the two lattice (...group) articles.

Michael Hardy (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I know that it looks a bit confusing, yet I can't think of the titles that are better than "lattice (group)" and "lattice (discrete subgroup)" for the articles on these two topics. The former one is examplified by Γ=Zⁿ, but some of its typical applications (e.g. in number theory or discrete geometry) do not really use the group structure on G=Rⁿ, just the fact that Γ acts faithfully, discretely and cocompactly on a Euclidean space or a vector space. While technically the notion of a lattice Γ in a Lie group (or a topological group) G is a generalization, the theory has completely different flavor, since typically, the ambient group G is semisimple, like SL(n,R). One possibility would be to rename "lattice (group)" into "lattice (Zⁿ)", but the cure is worse than the decease. I'd say, let it be. Arcfrk (talk) 02:44, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences

A new editor created this article about a textbook. I added a notability tag and the editor has asked for help in establishing it. We don't seem to have many articles on textbooks and the criteria in the academics section of Wikipedia:Notability (books) seems rather vague to me, so some clarification of the notability criteria for math books and some additional input on this particular article would be appreciated.--RDBury (talk) 05:40, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

If they can substantiate the article's claim that "The book ... is frequently cited in other textbooks and scientific papers.", then it is notable. Otherwise, not. JRSpriggs (talk) 17:35, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Six cross-ratios

The new page six cross-ratios has been prodded for deletion. Tkuvho (talk) 14:56, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Please comment at Talk:Six_cross-ratios. Tkuvho (talk) 15:38, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Added a {{prod2}} --JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:40, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be summarily redirected, as noted in the {{prod}}, and that redirect be nominated for deletion. But I have no real objection to the {{prod}} taking its course. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:45, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Actual infinity

Several sections of this article consist entirely of quotations from other sources. Though referenced, these are not labeled as quotations so there are possible copyright issues here. In any case, a list of quotations does not constitute an encyclopedia article so much of the article needs to be rewritten. One option may be to remove the problematic material and merge the rest into Infinity.--RDBury (talk) 02:10, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The lack of quotations marks needs to be remedied, but I'm not sure a merge would be the best thing. I would think that the term "actual infinity" is deserving of its own article. Paul August ☎ 20:32, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree — this is a cleanup issue, not an argument against the existence of an article. From my non-lawyer perspective I doubt there's really a copyright issue, but certainly large sections consisting mainly of quotes are not good article style; it should be rewritten into prose. --Trovatore (talk) 20:44, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I added a more specific cleanup tag and changed the quoted material to block quotes. It's not really my area of expertise or interest or I'd do the rewrite myself. I'm not saying the article shouldn't exist, but I don't think it should exist in its current state.--RDBury (talk) 01:07, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Decimal superbase

FYI Decimal superbase has been sent for deletion. 70.29.212.131 (talk) 03:58, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Is mentioning the Erdős number encyclopedic?

I noticed that a good number of articles on mathematicians include Erdős numbers. This seems questionable trivia to me. Perhaps a more encyclopedic way of including this information is to change it to a "List of notable collaborators". Including the Erdős number in articles seems like an invitation for OR and using unreliable sources and the articles I've looked at confirm this.--RDBury (talk) 00:44, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

There are reasonably reliable sources for Erdős numbers (the MathSciNet calculator, for instance). But I agree that in most cases it tends to be trivia. I think it should be mentioned when the subject of an article was a close collaborator of Erdős but otherwise omitted from our articles. (They can still be listed in List of people by Erdős number, though, if the number is at most three — beyond that the reliability of the calculations becomes more questionable.) —David Eppstein (talk) 01:34, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Having an Erdős number of 1 might be worth mentioning in a biography, but I wouldn't include higher numbers. --Tango (talk) 01:56, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree that the Erdős number is not worth mentioning (although I must confess that I take a certain foolish pride in knowing mine is three, it is glaringly obvious to me that it implies next to nothing about my mathematical accomplishments). Paul August ☎ 14:08, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I think "X has an Erdős number of 2" is trivia, but "At some date, X collaborated with Y, while researching this-or-that, producing some interesting result and giving X an Erdős number of 2" is just detail - and there's nothing wrong with detail. --Paul Carpenter (talk) 14:20, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit war over inclusion of image

There is an edit war over the inclusion of the image File:012OrderTensorFields.svg in the articles Scalar field and Vector field. I, for one, find the image to be quite unsuitable for these articles. Why should one be worried about second order tensors in an article on scalar fields or vector fields? Not to mention the fact that, as an illustration of scalar fields per se, it is a poor illustration (arrows pointing up and down? does anyone visualize scalar fields this way?) Also, the image geometry is poor for a lead image, since it is very long and pushes much more germane images further down the page. At any rate, rather than revert the addition a second time, I thought I should post here to gauge what the consensus is. Sławomir Biały (talk) 19:57, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The same image is used in the related Vector field and Tensor field articles. The image compares the fields. If it is relevant for one, then it is relevant for all. For consistency the image should therefore be included in all, or excluded in all - and if the latter then a good reason must be given for exclusion. There is no point in "being bold" as asked for of Wikipedia editors if any time one attempts to do so and instill some consistency (and therefore professional appearance, the edit is reverted because of another editor's personal preference. JohnArmagh (talk) 20:36, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Arguing from consistency is disingenuous, since you are the very person that added it today to Scalar field and Vector field. It's Its purpose in Tensor field is, I think, to show that tensor fields generalize scalar fields and vector fields. Aside from some chimerical "consistency", what exactly is the image supposed to achieve in Scalar field and Vector field? Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:06, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The rationale was consistency, not the argument (you turned it into an argument) - and the edit and the reasoning behind it were good faith and absolutely NOT disingenuousness. So once again I require you to retract that statement. (And for your information it should be its purpose, not it's purpose - or are you going to argue that point also?) JohnArmagh (talk) 20:12, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for catching the typo!  ;-) Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree about the image: apart from being fairly crude (though if that were the only issue I would leave it in and hope it is improved or replaced) the first of the three images does not look like a scalar field: it looks like a vector field with the vectors parallel. Even the third one looks like vectors, or like there's a frame of reference so an orientation at each point. Also the caption is far too long - it would be too long anyway (the image should be clear without needing such a long explanation) but it's far worse for a narrow and tall image, which grows by several lines because of the caption.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:51, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The images already in the articles (File:Scalarfield.jpg and File:VectorField.svg) illustrate the concepts much better than new one. There might be a case for having it in Tensor field since there are no other images, but I doubt someone who didn't already know what a tensor field was would make much sense of it. It would be nice to have an image that conveys the abstract concept of a tensor field, but it seems a rather impossible task.--RDBury (talk) 01:24, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the image is poor. It probably ought to be removed from all three articles. Paul August ☎ 11:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. The images that RDBury linked to are better illustrations of scalar and vector fields. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:48, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Which is reasonable (unlike the somewhat authoritarian approach of Sławomir Biały). It is not a very good image - but it is the one being used. If it is unsuitable then it should be removed from all the articles. JohnArmagh (talk) 20:15, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Pot, please allow me to introduce kettle. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

WAREL revisited

Motomuku (talk · contribs) seems quite similar; adding minor unsourced incorrect changes to Perfect number, although WAREL was mostly dealing with odd perfect numbers, and Motomuku with even perfect numbers. He apparently also is emphasizing the (disputed) importance of Japanese people. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:32, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Requests for comment/WAREL. Sławomir Biały (talk) 09:57, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Reliable sources issue at help desk

For anyone who does not monitor the help desk, an issue has come up on the Collatz conjecture that I thought deserved a cross-post here. See Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics#Could someone please look at this supposed solution to Collatz conjecture.--RDBury (talk) 12:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

While we're at it (same editor), Vantieghems theorem may possibly only need an apostrophe, but I'd prefer a solid reference and a notability check. Charles Matthews (talk) 17:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The Problem with Wikipedia Maths and a solution... perhaps

Hi everyone, I don't usually edit so apologies if I'm breaking any conventions here.

I use parts of the Mathematics project fairly regularly and as useful as I find it, there is a major problem; one which I am not the only one to experience. I think it is best to show an example of a potential route though Wikipedias maths sections, using the particular strategy of clicking on the link after "is a":

• 5
• 5 (number)
• number
• mathematical object
• abstract object
• object

Great! I've learnt that (the number) 5 is something (probably). OK, obviously if I click on the link after "is a" I get a more general set of things. Indeed, it is the behaviour that one would hope for. However, this induces a problem in the maths articles (more so than others). It is used as a crutch to avoid actually describing what things are, which is a problem for the uninitiated. Instead of getting an understanding of something, I find myself falling into a spiral of abstraction and being just as confused as I was to start with. Admittedly, the problem is worst when I do not know when to stop, as I am unfamiliar with the topic and is unsure about what is and isn't important (my guess is that being unfamiliar with a topic is the main reason for someone to visit the page). Other people have mentioned this to me, "yeah, I never use wikipedia for maths because they make it too hard to understand"

My suggestion is to make one of those sidebar things for each section of maths: show the reader what other things are important to their understanding of a particular thing, not just an abstraction. It should have 3 sections, one for concepts which a specific examples of that thing, one for generalisation(s) and one for things that are related on the same `conceptual level', including (highlighted) those immediate things that must be understood. For example

Vector Space:

Important concepts:

• Vector
• Vector Multiplication
• Scalar Multiplication
• Coordinates
• Linearity
• etc

Generalisations:

• Complex Vector Space
• Things that I can't remember the names of
• Things that I havn't heard of
• etc

Examples:

• Normed Vector Space
• Real Number Line
• Hilbert Space
• etc

Anyway, Just a thought, perhaps it can be near-automatically generated from the links (I have a fairly good idea how to do this).

Any thoughts/blunt criticism would be welcome

Lucaswilkins (talk) 23:47, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like you would like for things to be classified ontologically. Gee, what a great idea.Greg Bard 00:01, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Now some of this is actually a problem with mathematics itself, you know. Where sidebars have been tried, mostly they have been unpopular: some articles have footers with related topics. But what we are really required to do is to treat mathematics as a collection of facts, and to report on it that way. In many parts of mathematics there is a degree of abstraction. I can sympathise with anyone who finds that learning mathematics from Wikipedia is tough, but it is a reference work, not a textbook. Other encyclopedic works on mathematics have a similar style. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:22, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Sidebars (normally placed on the right at the top of an article) are best suited to short lists of up to about 5 or 6 items. For longer lists, navboxes (placed at the end of an article) are better because they are less intrusive and are collapsible. We already have a bunch of these for different mathematical topic areas - see Template:Mathematics-footer, Template:Algebra-footer and Template:Topology-footer for examples, and Category:Mathematics templates for a more complete list. What you are proposing is not a fundamentally bad idea, but it would be very difficult to create and maintain a topic-specific template for every mathematics article, and there is not much benefit, as it is basically duplicating a set of links that should already be in the article text or its See Also section, and duplicating a taxonomy that is implemented through Categories. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:58, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

<cackle>Oh dear he's found us out. Bubble bubble toil and trouble, I stir the pot that is Wikipedia and throw in new references, and watch as the users spiral into the vortex of links to wake up hours later with part of their life sucked out of them and not knowing what they were looking up originally. Hee hee hee Dmcq (talk) 11:22, 18 June 2010 (UTC)</cackle>

We hear these sorts of complaints on a pretty regular basis here. Usually they're not as articulate as you, and usually they don't come with suggestions. Pretty uniformly, the math community here rejects those complaints. Unlike you, most of the complainers seem to think that the problem lies with us and our writing: If only we wrote better, they'd pass math!

I'm starting to wonder, however, if there isn't some truth to those complaints. In the "real world" of math papers and math publications, there are good and bad expositors. Serre and Milnor, for instance, are noted for being excellent writers. The AMS has a prize for good exposition which few people are deserving of. Once in a while you will hear someone complain about the quality of a paper (though since we don't want to offend our colleagues, this is usually quite discreet). Which suggests to me the question: Is most of the math writing on WP good or bad?

I don't think it's a wholly fair question, because we have some unusual constraints. Foremost among these is time (it's not our job to write here). Also there is expertise (while there are many experts here, there are also many non-experts). But even granted those constraints, sometimes we produce good work and sometimes bad. I think derivative is very good right up until the section on the total derivative. But the total derivative section, especially its first paragraph, isn't. It is—in my opinion—bad. Or at least not good.

Now, I'm not claiming that most math on WP is bad. I think the people who contribute here do so out of a love of exposition, and they are skilled and dedicated to it as few mathematicians are. But there are always failed sentences and paragraphs. I wonder if we aren't humble enough in the face of our weaknesses. Maybe one way to improve WP's math articles is to admit that sometimes, our choice of words was a mistake. Ozob (talk) 11:53, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Writing accessible mathematics texts is hard. Writing them in an Encyclopedic style that satisfies WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:OR is even harder. My experience is that getting technical math and physics articles to a decent accessible level, while satisfying all the other constraint can easily take a couple of editors a few months. The result is clear, there are not that many very well written math articles (although there are definitely some). With time their number will (slowly) rise. In the time being it is much easier to write math articles that stick closer to standard textbook expositions (which are typically written in a dialect of English unintelligible to the uninitiated). The volume of such article is much greater, and while not useful to a lot of user, they are still useful too quite a few people that do get the peculiar dialect of English. (Wikipedia is the first place a lot of physics and math grad students look when confronted by an unknown concept.) TimothyRias (talk) 12:41, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The issue of WP:V is particularly relevant if we are trying to write a popularization of a graduate-level topic. However, for more elementary articles, the main obstruction is labor.

A separate issue is that there is not universal agreement on what an article here should be. For survey articles, I like the style of Computability theory, which I contributed a to, but others find it too advanced. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:19, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes

The Randomness article has been added to the trial of the new Pending changes system. The best explanation I have seen of this system is in this image.

Any user in good standing is eligible to be added to the "reviewer" group, but it is not automatic. You only need to ask an admin to add you to the group.

Apart from that, if you would like access to the "rollback" feature to quickly undo vandalism, is can also be granted by admins on request. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Inner product display template

Please try out the following template "Inprod" for displaying inner products and comment on its appearance. It's meant to be used for inline text. Feel free to experiment with different inline text situations. Thanks.

{{Inprod|A|B}}   results in   $\scriptstyle \langle$ A , B $\scriptstyle \rangle$

--Bob K31416 (talk) 23:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

---

Comments:

• I think it ({{inprod}}) should be renamed {{inner product}} , the current name "inprod" may elicit confusion with wikispeak ("prod" is a deletion process on Wikipedia). Though isn't just displaying a paired term right now? (and thus could be used for a pair of coordinates) 70.29.212.131 (talk) 04:34, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Unortunately, I didn't understand your remark, "Though isn't just displaying a paired term right now?" I'd appreciate it if you explained it and perhaps gave an example of what you meant.

I'm interested in how the above example displays on your computer, since displays can vary from computer to computer. For example, if instead of using the above template, one uses &lang;A,B&rang;, the angle brackets tend to be displayed as boxes on Mac computers. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

• It's still a bad template. Instead of using & thinsp; in text, you should use the technique {{val}} uses at {{val/delimitnum/fraction}}, namely < span style="margin-left:0.25em" > ... < /span >. I don't think it looks that good, even so, but that doesn't look good. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:54, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. What is the advantage of using < span style="margin-left:0.25em" > ... < /span > instead of &thinsp;? And would it result in a fractional space before and after each vector, which was the purpose of &thinsp;? Perhaps you could use span style to create a new template that is an improvement? I would appreciate that.

Re "I don't think it looks that good" - Could you give an example, with or without a template, of something that looks better, for the above example using A and B? Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The & thinsp; doesn't display on my current configuration, while & lang; and & rang; do.

As for < span style >, see the discussion of {{val}}, probably at Template talk:val, but possibly in the WT:MOSNUM archives. It moves creates spaces of 1/4 mdash, which provides the visual effect of a thinsp, but can be pasted.

Are you trying to simulate < math> < A,B > < /math>? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:00, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you meant by "trying to simulate < math> < A,B > < /math>" but I'll try to answer as best as I can. There is a problem with displaying angle brackets for inner products in inline text in Wikipedia. Using <math> with or without \scriptstyle doesn't look very good for inline text. The HTML codes &lang; and &rang; are good on most computers, and I happily used them myself, until I found out that they tended to display as boxes on Mac computers and on some Windows computers too, and also appear as question marks in some cases. So I tried to find a way to display angle brackets that were as good or nearly as good as those HTML codes, and which didn't have the complete failure of boxes and question marks that occurs with those HTML codes on most Macs and some other computers. I have no pride of ownership regarding this task and I would be tickled if someone could come up with a template that would do the job better than what I have, without the problem with &thinsp; that you mentioned that you had on your computer. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:34, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

• It looks very bad to me: mis-sized and misaligned with the brackets jagged: $\scriptstyle \langle$ a , b $\scriptstyle \rangle$. It goes against the recommendations in the MOS for using LaTeX images inline, and that was written with single images in mind, i.e. with whole formulae represented as images. Having multiple images in a single formula is much worse for page load times and alignment. Images also don't play nice with other mathematical templates, like $\scriptstyle \langle$ a , b $\scriptstyle \rangle$⁄2 and $\scriptstyle \langle$ a , b $\scriptstyle \rangle$ + $\scriptstyle \langle$ c , d $\scriptstyle \rangle$.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:31, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Could you give an inline text example that isn't "mis-sized and misaligned with the brackets jagged" so that I can see more clearly what you mean?

Re your examples of use with the templates {{frac}} and {{math}}, I didn't see the problems on my computer, although I don't think it was appropriate to use {{frac}} and simply using / 2 would have been preferable for me. What were the problems in your examples that used {{frac}} and {{math}} on your computer? And could you give examples where you didn't have problems on your computer displaying inline text with inner products and {{frac}} and {{math}}? Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:22, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

This ⟨a, b⟩ works much better on my machine, e.g. ⟨a, b⟩⁄2 or ⟨a, b⟩² + ⟨c, d⟩². The brackets scale and are smoothed like the other text, the baselines are aligned, and no images so it loads and renders the paragraph instantly, not slowly and multiple times as images are loaded. I notice now also your template has a lot of extra spacing that looks out of place. I don't see anything in the manual of style on this but standard mathematical typesetting would only put spaces after the comma, e.g.

$\langle \mathbf {a} ,\mathbf {b} \rangle$

--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:09, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I would use your suggestions for the left angle bracket &#x27e8; [1] and right angle bracket &#x27e9; [2], but unfortunately they display on various systems as question marks or boxes. I'm open to any suggestions for a better way of displaying angle brackets in the template. --Bob K31416 (talk) 11:00, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. I am against any proposal that mixes PNG images with html. One issue is that these do not scale properly: e.g., (−1)^{$\scriptstyle \langle$ a , b $\scriptstyle \rangle$} looks like all symbols are at nearly the same height, versus (−1)^⟨a,b⟩ or $(-1)^{\langle a,b\rangle }$. Also, the current template wraps around newlines, but that might be fixable. Sławomir Biały (talk) 18:37, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I would use your suggestions for the left angle bracket &lang; [3] and right angle bracket &rang; [4], but unfortunately they display on most Mac computers and some Windows computers as boxes. I'm open to any suggestions for a better way of displaying angle brackets in the template. --Bob K31416 (talk) 11:15, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

That seems unlikely: I can imagine there are old versions of Windows or IE that have problems displaying them, but modern versions of Windows and all versions of OS X should be fine as "⟨" and "⟩" are just Unicode characters and unexotic ones at that. Wikipedia is Unicode based, and if you have problems viewing common Unicode characters the thing to do is work out why and fix it on your machine, not make viewing and editing worse for everyone else.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 12:02, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

John, Were you referring to &#x27e8; and &#x27e9;, or &lang; and &rang; ? If the former, perhaps you should move your comment to the appropriate thread above with your previous message. --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:40, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

In any case, John was referring to either option 1 (&lang; and &rang;) or option 8 (&#x27e8; and &#x27e9;) in the table below. (I think he meant option 8, which he recently added to the table.)--Bob K31416 (talk) 01:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Table

There was recent thread about this at Talk:Pythagorean theorem#Angle brackets and an overview of some options at Talk:Pythagorean theorem#Putting it together. There was little attention, so perhaps it would be a good idea to take over the table and have some more input here. DVdm (talk) 11:16, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Option1	Option2	Option3	Option4	Option5	Option6	Option7	Option8	User (~~~)
HTML	HTML	Math+HTML+ Math+HTML	HTML	Math	Math	Math+HTML+ Math+HTML	HTML (math symbols)
inline ⟨v,v⟩1/2 test	inline 〈v,v〉1/2 test	inline $\langle$v,v$\rangle$1/2 test	inline <v,v>1/2 test	inline $\langle \mathbf {v} ,\mathbf {v} \rangle ^{1/2}$ test	inline $\scriptstyle \langle \mathbf {v} ,\mathbf {v} \rangle ^{1/2}$ test	inline $\scriptstyle \langle$v,v$\scriptstyle \rangle$1/2 test	inline ⟨v, v⟩1/2 test
unreadable (boxes)	very ugly	ugly	OK	very ugly	OK	OK	unreadable (boxes)	DVdm (talk)
unreadable (boxes)	poor	fair	fair	poor	fair	good	unreadable (boxes)	Bob K31416 Mac
good	poor	fair	fair	poor	fair	good	unreadable (boxes)	Bob K31416 Windows
poor (can't read)	poor (extra space)	fair (looks fine, but Math/HTML mix)	poor (wrong use of character)	fair (too big for inline)	good	fair (looks fine, but Math/HTML mix)		Blue Moonlet Mac
too wide	too wide	ugly	ugly	ugly	ugly	ugly	OK	JohnBlackburne OS X 10.6
good	fair (too wide)	fair (OK, but doesn't scale)	poor (wrong character)	fair (OK, but too large, inline)	good	poor (a little worse than 3, and doesn't scale	good (renders a little heavier than #1 in some resolutions)	Arthur Rubin Windows XP, Opera
good	fair (extra space)	fair (mixes Latex and html: poor in more complex formulas)	poor (wrong character)	fair (too large inline)	good	fair (looks worse than 3 at normal size, scales better)	good	Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:21, 11 June 2010 (UTC) Debian Etch, Iceweasel
unreadable	unreadable	OK	too wide	too big	OK	best	unreadable	JRSpriggs
poor (too wide)	poor (too wide)	poor (brackets too big)	fair (not true angle brackets but understandable and portable)	fair (too big but whole formula has a consistent size)	ok	fair (appearance not bad but doesn't scale)	good	David Eppstein (talk), OS-X, Chrome and Safari produced the identical appearance.
good, but very faint / boxes	good, but coarse pixels	ugly (grotesquely high brackets)	fair	very ugly	very ugly	fair	best / boxes	Hans Adler, Firefox / Internet Explorer, on Windows with many fonts installed

This might help compare the various options of the above table:

1. inline ⟨v,v⟩^1/2 test

2. inline 〈v,v〉^1/2 test

3. inline $\langle$v,v$\rangle$^1/2 test

4. inline <v,v>^1/2 test

5. inline $\langle \mathbf {v} ,\mathbf {v} \rangle ^{1/2}$ test

6. inline $\scriptstyle \langle \mathbf {v} ,\mathbf {v} \rangle ^{1/2}$ test

7. inline $\scriptstyle \langle$v,v$\scriptstyle \rangle$^1/2 test

8. inline ⟨v, v⟩^1/2 test

--Bob K31416 (talk) 02:43, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I've added my variant to the above table as it's clear it's different to what was there already. The wrong brackets may have come from the Edittools, which are now fixed, so that may have accounted for why they were not displaying properly for some people.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 12:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

FYI, the older version (CJK brackets) that was referred to in your link "fixed" is Option 2 in the table above. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:13, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I know - it's while looking at it and the ones I used that I realised why it was too wide. The other brackets in column 1 are Unicode 2329 and 232A from the "Miscellaneous Techical" block, i.e. they are computer symbols which look similar but again are too wide.

Just found something of relevance here, which explains it:

The left and right angle brackets at U+2329 and U+232A have long been canonically equivalent with the CJK punctuation characters “〈” and “〉” (U+3008 and U+3009) . Canonical equivalence implies that the use of the latter code points is preferred and can be substituted at any time. As a consequence, not only 3008 and 3009 but also the characters 2329 and 232A are ‘wide’ characters. See Unicode Standard Annex #11, East Asian Width [EAW]. Unicode 3.2 added two new mathematical angle bracket characters ⟨ ⟩ (U+27E8 and U+27E9) that are unequivocally intended for mathematical use and should be used instead of U+2329 and U+232A.

So of the three Unicode char pairs the ones we should use are the angle brackets (Unicode 3.2 was released in 2002).--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 11:57, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The responses in the table to the option 8 that you entered, suggest that for computers where it is readable, it works better than the CJK characters of option 2. But unfortunately the other responses suggest that there may be a significantly increased number of computers where it is unreadable. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:40, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much worth the table has in this form, since people may disagree on what looks ugly, poor, fair, ok - by looking at the same version, that is. If you have different authors testing different versions (on different Browsers or OS), we have no idea whether it looks really bad (=all agree it looks bad) or whether it just looks bad from the perspective of that particular tester.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that the vast majority of readers would accept all of them, except the ones that are unreadable. --Bob K31416 (talk) 03:46, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Option 6 seems to be knocking harder and harder on the door by the minute... —Preceding unsigned comment added by DVdm (talk • contribs) 12:09, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

There might be some objection that using \scriptstyle inline might have unintended consequences. I have not been present for all of the debates about this, but there seems to have been some heated discussion on this very issue at WT:MOSMATH. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Using \scriptstyle outside (sub|super)scripts is a typographic disaster, because TeX omits all the spaces around binary operation and relation symbols in scriptstyle: cf. $\scriptstyle x+y=z$ to $x+y=z\,$. It would be an uphill battle to persuade users of the template to insert the missing spaces (and only them) manually, as in $\scriptstyle x\,+\,y$.—Emil J. 14:11, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I had problems trying to implement options 5 or 6 in a template. I experimented in the template sandbox X9.[5] For example, users wouldn't be able to enter vectors in the inner product because parameters didn't work when they were between <math> and </math>. There were other problems too, such as how to implement the options of bold font for the vectors and exponents for the inner product, in a user friendly way.

Option 7 didn't have those problems when making a template ( {{Inprod}} ) and option 3 wouldn't either, since they used <math> only for each angle bracket individually. Also, the other 4 options wouldn't have those problems when making a template. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:37, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Option 7 looks the best to me. 3 and 6 are OK. 4 is too wide. 5 is too big. 1, 2, and 8 are unreadable. JRSpriggs (talk) 18:19, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Table comments summary

(The following is based on the current state of the table where Hans Adler's entry was the last.)

Summary of short parts of comments for the options 1–8:

1. unreadable, unreadable, good, unreadable, too wide, good, good, unreadabele, poor, good, unreadable

2. very ugly, poor, poor, poor, too wide, fair, fair, unreadable, poor, good, good

3. ugly, fair, fair, fair, ugly, fair, fair, OK, poor, ugly, ugly

4. OK, fair, fair, poor, ugly, poor, poor, too wide, fair, fair, fair

5. very ugly, poor, poor, fair, ugly, fair, fair, too big, fair, very ugly, very ugly

6. OK, fair, fair, good, ugly, good, good, OK, OK, very ugly, very ugly

7. OK, good, good, fair, ugly, poor, fair, best, fair, fair, fair

8. unreadable, unreadable, unreadable,   , OK, good, good, unreadable, good, best, unreadable

---

In my opinion, these comments suggest the following order of best (option 6) to worst (option 8):

6. OK, fair, fair, good, ugly, good, good, OK, OK, very ugly, very ugly

7. OK, good, good, fair, ugly, poor, fair, best, fair, fair, fair

3. ugly, fair, fair, fair, ugly, fair, fair, OK, poor, ugly, ugly

4. OK, fair, fair, poor, ugly, poor, poor, too wide, fair, fair, fair

5. very ugly, poor, poor, fair, ugly, fair, fair, too big, fair, very ugly, very ugly

2. very ugly, poor, poor, poor, too wide, fair, fair, unreadable, poor, good, good

1. unreadable, unreadable, good, unreadable, too wide, good, good, unreadabele, poor, good, unreadable

8. unreadable, unreadable, unreadable,   , OK, good, good, unreadable, good, best, unreadable

Since options 5 and 6 are not amenable to being used in a template (see a previous message), here's the above option order without 5 and 6, i.e. the ordered sequence of options that can be used in a template from best (option7) to worst (option 8):

7, 3, 4, 2, 1, 8

--Bob K31416 (talk) 18:44, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Please note that option 7 was the one that was used in the template {{Inprod}}, which was the subject that started this discussion Inner product display template. --Bob K31416 (talk) 10:35, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Note: Not all !voters expressed an opinion about the acceptability of mixing HTML with LaTeX. Most merely commented about the looks. So, based on the looks we have indeed 7, 3, 4, 2, 1, 8, whereas when we exclude 7 and 3, we have:

4, 2, 1, 8.

- DVdm (talk) 12:53, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I started this section Inner product display template as an attempt to sample how {{Inprod}} appeared on users' computer systems, for the purpose of template development. I thank all those who participated, and if anyone who hasn't responded would like to share their information on that, it's still welcome. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:15, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the issue of how to display the notation for inner products in inline text, I don't see that any of the options would please a consensus of editors. Perhaps some day the Wikipedia software developers will be able to have mathematical expressions such as inner products, displayed properly in inline text. Or maybe some day, fonts for proper angle brackets, like option 8, will be installed and work properly on nearly all computers, but apparently this is very slow in coming. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:37, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Template:Logic

Greg is vandalizing the template, in the guise of "following redirects"; even if "following redirects" were appropriate in templates, he's also removing redirects such as Model (logic) from the model theory section. I don't know how many other templates he's vandalizing. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:32, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

You will find that my edits are innocent and appropriate. This is Arthur behaving very immaturely, in my opinion.Greg Bard 02:33, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

At this point I have to request that the group look in on Arthur. It is possible that he just doesn't see what he is doing. I am trying to avoid redirects and Arthur is reinserting them like a mad man. Do you guys love Arthur at all? Look in on him for his own sake at this point. Greg Bard 02:40, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

If you remove entries which are redirects, it's a significant change; as most of your significant changes are inappropriate in any article referenced in a mathematics article, I think it's appropriate. to revert you on sight if any of the edit is clearly wrong. If you were to (1) follow each redirect, deleting none; (2) remove duplicates and realphabetize; and (3) THEN make any substantive edits which may seem appropriate, then I would consider only reverting step (3). Steps (1), although unneccesary, is not vandalism. Step (2) is minor. Step (3) is one you are likely to do wrong, as you do not understand classical logic. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:49, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

So basically you made all this drama because you want a link to "model." What a baby. I have no problem with that --baby.Greg Bard 03:01, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

No, I noticed the link to "model" was gone. There were also at least 7 links in the sections loosely related to mathematical logic which were deleted, and I don't know how many others may be appropriate. As you've shown you do not understand mathematical logic, please do not make any changes other than following redirects in those sections. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:06, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Arthur you have shown what type of person you are also. I have an excellent understanding of logic, by any standard. This is just you behaving like a prima donna, and being impossibly demanding. You are wasting everyone's time with your tactics. I am perfectly open to whatever links you want. So what exactly is your problem?! A problem that is so pressing you feel a need to insult. You are an uncivil person Arthur, plain and simple. Greg Bard 03:12, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't feel a need to insult. As you don't respond to reason, I thought I'd try accurate descriptions for the benefit of those with the ability to block you, if they find it appropriate. I, of course, may not block you. Your lack of understanding is quite apparent from your edits to model (logic), in regard the deleted Category:Strings of symbols, and a number of other edits. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:20, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

The statement "you don't respond to reason" goes against WP:AGF Arthur. At some point you need to learn how to respectfully disagree.Greg Bard 03:44, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:AGF is not a suicide pact. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:48, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Prove me wrong; discuss your edits at Template talk:Logic#"Follow redirects". — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:49, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Arthur, I think you should step back from this: there are others in the project quite competent to assess the template, and with less baggage. A string of personal attacks is simply not likely to resolve such a dispute. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:14, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your decent, and measured response Charles M. I want to let you and others in the project to know that I trust them with this task and I certainly invite any correspondence or questions about this incident.Greg Bard 22:45, 19 June 2010 (UTC)