Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics
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Are Wikipedia's mathematics articles targeted at professional mathematicians?
No, we target our articles at an appropriate audience. Usually this is an interested layman. However, this is not always possible. Some advanced topics require substantial mathematical background to understand. This is no different from other specialized fields such as law and medical science. If you believe that an article is too advanced, please leave a detailed comment on the article's talk page. If you understand the article and believe you can make it simpler, you are also welcome to improve it, in the framework of the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Why is it so difficult to learn mathematics from Wikipedia articles?
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a textbook. Wikipedia articles are not supposed to be pedagogic treatments of their topics. Readers who are interested in learning a subject should consult a textbook listed in the article's references. If the article does not have references, ask for some on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics. Wikipedia's sister projects Wikibooks which hosts textbooks, and Wikiversity which hosts collaborative learning projects, may be additional resources to consider. See also: Using Wikipedia for mathematics self-study Why are Wikipedia mathematics articles so abstract?
Abstraction is a fundamental part of mathematics. Even the concept of a number is an abstraction. Comprehensive articles may be forced to use abstract language because that language is the only language available to give a correct and thorough description of their topic. Because of this, some parts of some articles may not be accessible to readers without a lot of mathematical background. If you believe that an article is overly abstract, then please leave a detailed comment on the talk page. If you can provide a more down-to-earth exposition, then you are welcome to add that to the article. Why don't Wikipedia's mathematics articles define or link all of the terms they use?
Sometimes editors leave out definitions or links that they believe will distract the reader. If you believe that a mathematics article would be more clear with an additional definition or link, please add to the article. If you are not able to do so yourself, ask for assistance on the article's talk page. Why don't many mathematics articles start with a definition?
We try to make mathematics articles as accessible to the largest likely audience as possible. In order to achieve this, often an intuitive explanation of something precedes a rigorous definition. The first few paragraphs of an article (called the lead) are supposed to provide an accessible summary of the article appropriate to the target audience. Depending on the target audience, it may or may not be appropriate to include any formal details in the lead, and these are often put into a dedicated section of the article. If you believe that the article would benefit from having more formal details in the lead, please add them or discuss the matter on the article's talk page. Why don't mathematics articles include lists of prerequisites?
A well-written article should establish its context well enough that it does not need a separate list of prerequisites. Furthermore, directly addressing the reader breaks Wikipedia's encyclopedic tone. If you are unable to determine an article's context and prerequisites, please ask for help on the talk page. Why are Wikipedia's mathematics articles so hard to read?
We strive to make our articles comprehensive, technically correct and easy to read. Sometimes it is difficult to achieve all three. If you have trouble understanding an article, please post a specific question on the article's talk page. Why don't math pages rely more on helpful YouTube videos and media coverage of mathematical issues?
Mathematical content of YouTube videos is often unreliable (though some may be useful for pedagogical purposes rather than as references). Media reports are typically sensationalistic. This is why they are generally avoided. |
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higher polytopes
[edit]I question the value of articles like Heptellated 8-simplexes. Is there a good reason not to bundle all the simplices (and their truncations sensu lato) of dimension ≥5 into one article? Ditto for the hypercubes, cross-polytopes, demicubes; but perhaps not the E-families (forked Coxeter-Dynkin diagrams with branch lengths 1,2,n). —Tamfang (talk) 22:35, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
- I agree and I've been WP:BLARing multiple such articles recently. They have a lot of content but very little in the way of adequate sourcing. As I wrote on some other recent ones, the only source that covers the actual topic of the article, Klitzing, appears to be neither reliable nor intelligible. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:39, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
- That's a pity, as it's hosted on my personal site. —Tamfang (talk) 03:10, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
- No comment. Geometrical articles have that similar thing. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:26, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- ... Rectified 7-orthoplexes, Truncated 7-orthoplexes, Truncated 7-simplexes, Cantellated 7-simplexes, Runcinated 7-simplexes, Stericated 7-simplexes ... are there others? —Tamfang (talk) 04:05, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
Why is the title of that article plural? WP:MOS requires the singular except when there is a special reason to make it plural. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:59, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
Requested move at Talk:Chebotarev's density theorem#Requested move 31 March 2025
[edit]
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Chebotarev's density theorem#Requested move 31 March 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 15:55, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
How do we feel about this? It seems like there is no discussion of this anywhere. Tito Omburo (talk) 00:44, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- The standard naming for categories is to match the main article for the category even when it looks stupid and the disambiguator is not needed for any ambiguity. I don't think there is much hope of convincing the people who discuss categories to do anything differently. The way to contest this is to find a different name for Series (mathematics) and let the category name follow from it. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
- ok that makes sense. The procedural posture seemed dubious is all. Tito Omburo (talk) 13:01, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
Heyting and intuitionism
[edit]I was reading Heyting algebra, which cites an article by Heyting where he supposedly introduced Heyting algebras for intuitionistic formalisms. I couldn’t find the text of that article anywhere online, but my university library has it, so I took a scan of it. If anybody wants a copy feel free to reach out.
From my reading of the text (not a thorough one), it seems like it doesn’t introduce Heyting algebras. But I would welcome if someone else took a look too. Anselm Schüler (talk) 00:31, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
Creating a page for Rotatopes
[edit]There are already several pages on wikipedia for n-dimensional geometry, namely the page on n-cubes, n-spheres, and polytopes. I recently wrote a draft for a page on rotatopes which in short are n-dimensional shapes that are created from translation and rotation about an axis within the shape. The only sources on rotatopes however are wikis which are usually not considered reliable. Was wondering if anyone here had any advice on how to get this page added. Ncgtr (talk) 23:22, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
- My only advice is: get multiple different research groups to reliably publish work on rotatopes, so that it would no longer be the case that "the only sources on rotatopes however are wikis". Wait several years for their work to be peer-reviewed and published. Then, once it becomes clear through those publications that the topic has become notable, rewrite the draft to be based only on those publications and not on unpublished work or wikis. By doing all this, it should become possible to get the draft accepted as an article. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:12, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
Would someone who understands group theory and more specifically understands reflection groups please look at this article and offer an opinion as to whether it meets the good article criteria? This is the longest-pending Good Article Nomination, having been nominated about eight months ago. My assumption is that it has not been reviewed for the obvious reason that most of the editors who review Good Article Nominations are not mathematicians. Neither am I. But a chemist and computer scientist should know where to look for mathematicians. The instructions say that any uninvolved and registered user with sufficient knowledge and experience with Wikipedia may review the nominated article against the good article criteria.
I am sure that some of you all have "sufficient knowledge and experience". Robert McClenon (talk) 22:27, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
Bachelor's thesis
[edit]This edit at List of NP-complete problems replaces a reference to a published book with a reference to a bachelor's thesis, that contains the claim that the book doesn't actually contain a proof of the given result. Thoughts? --JBL (talk) 20:25, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
- My feeling is that bachelor's theses are generally unreliable. And the version of the Yato ref that I can find online [1] (the master's thesis rather than the journal version?) certainly does contain a proof. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:13, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah that's odd; maybe the two different versions are the source of the confusion. For the moment I have reverted. --JBL (talk) 00:33, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
Good article reassessment for Mathematical economics
[edit]Mathematical economics has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 16:23, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
- I doubt that mathematical economics is part of mathematics. That is, it is not in the scope of this project. JRSpriggs (talk) 19:56, 21 April 2025 (UTC)
- Mathematical economics is a branch of applied mathematics, the same as mathematical physics. The posting is relevant. --
{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk}
20:13, 21 April 2025 (UTC)- As long as the fields are related to mathematical approaches, it is part of mathematics, I suppose. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 07:52, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- Yeah, I'd only be irked if this weren't brought up at WT:ECON, which it was. Gracen (they/them) 15:28, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- Mathematical economics is a branch of applied mathematics, the same as mathematical physics. The posting is relevant. --
- The Geocentric model is not in the scope of this project even though it uses mathematics to describe epicycles. The application of mathematics has to be at least approximately true to qualify for our consideration. JRSpriggs (talk) 17:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- I'd much rather we get notifications of vaguely-related GARs than that we be overly restrictive and not be notified when it actually is relevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:23, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- Speaking of GARs, especially mathematics, there are already several discussion talks about whether one should delist immediately if not appropriately considered to have the green badge according to WP:GACR, or fix the article switfly before GARs takes it away. I think they are seperated. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:24, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- Now the article is in good condition. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:33, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- Speaking of GARs, especially mathematics, there are already several discussion talks about whether one should delist immediately if not appropriately considered to have the green badge according to WP:GACR, or fix the article switfly before GARs takes it away. I think they are seperated. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 01:24, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- Moreover, I don't think "at least approximately true" is the correct guideline for whether the mathematical aspects of a topic are of encyclopedic interest. If there were people doing astronomy in the present day using epicycles and deferents, I think it would behoove Wikipedia to have the mathematical aspects of such topics appropriately described, and regardless of how true they are, I think you can agree that there are people using mathematical models in economics. Sesquilinear (talk) 20:05, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- Strongly agree with David. We all love a good WTM notification. Tito Omburo (talk) 22:33, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
- I'd much rather we get notifications of vaguely-related GARs than that we be overly restrictive and not be notified when it actually is relevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:23, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Template:Unsolved
[edit]The {{unsolved}} template (which makes a sidebar box describing an open problem and is used in many of our articles about or containing open problems) has been nominated for deletion. I had to change the discussion banner to be invisible on the articles that it appears in because it was severely breaking the formatting, so to make up for the loss in visibility I am posting here. Please contribute to the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2025 April 22. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:16, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
Root-finding algorithms
[edit]A new user created Bernoulli's method and wisely added the Template:Root-finding algorithms at the bottom of the article, but didnt add Bernoulli's method to the template. I don't understand what type of algorithm it is and I don't want to misfile. Could someone add to the appropriate division? Please and thank you. jengod (talk) 15:41, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- Before adding an article to a template, one must verify that it has a decent form. This is not yet the case, since the article asserts that a sequence of real numbers conveges to the largest complex root of a polynomial (I have tagged the assertion with {{clarify}}). So, please wait before adding the article to the template. D.Lazard (talk) 16:59, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
- I think it would fall into the polynomial methods. It finds the one root r (if there is just one) with the largest absolute value. Then one could divide the polynomial by (x - r) and apply it again until the polynomial has been factored. However, the convergence would only be linear; so it would be inferior to many of the other methods. JRSpriggs (talk) 17:23, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
I could not find the source for the citation of Kaplan about the identity element of addition in Brahmagupta's Brahmasphutasiddhanta. Maybe someone can give a hand? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 04:21, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
- An older version of the article has the following under Further reading: Kaplan, Robert (2000). The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero. Oxford UP. ISBN 0-19-512842-7. Pagliaccious (talk) 14:31, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
- Here's the diff: addition diff Pagliaccious (talk) 14:39, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks for the given source here. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 09:31, 25 April 2025 (UTC)
Large numbers IP
[edit]This is related to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics/Archive/2025/Apr#Knuth's_up-arrow_notation: the same person who was making questionable edits to Knuth's_up-arrow_notation has now moved on to Conway chained arrow notation and Graham's number (where in the later case they've been reverted by Mr swordfish). Also pinging @Sesquilinear and ArglebargleIV:. --JBL (talk) 18:12, 27 April 2025 (UTC)