Talk:Contributions of Leonhard Euler to mathematics

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This page is a bad idea for many reasons. Since it contains no more content than the section in Leonhard Euler, linking here from that page fools readers who expect to find out more. It is also unmaintainable -- who is going to update one page with changes done to the other? If someone greatly expands this page -- fine, but then someone should do it now. It serves no good purpose as a placeholder in its current state.

I don't think the choice of topic is a good one for an article either, since it is itself an overview and as such duplicates the purpose of the parent article. Maybe specific pages on contributions to more narrow areas like analysis, number theory, etc, would be better (we could think of Basel problem and Seven Bridges of Königsberg as examples). But again, someone should write the articles first, and actually make them long (and different) enough to warrant their own pages. Fredrik Johansson 16:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I wholly disagree. Sure it needs to be expanded but it is meant to contain more detailed content and more technical descriptions. I agree that it needs expansion but this is actually a pretty good idea for an article. Once it is expanded properly, the overview in the main article could be shortened a bit. Pascal.Tesson 17:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Then please expand it. Until this is done, a blank page would be better. Fredrik Johansson 12:24, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Whoa. Cool down man. You might also consider expanding it yourself you know. Pascal.Tesson 12:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

A blank page would be better because the article is currently likely to confuse readers. It's not my responsibility to expand the page, and I'm not going to blank it either; I'm just pointing out the problems I see with it, and explain how I think they should be fixed. Not much cooling down to be done. Fredrik Johansson 12:43, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't suppose you bothered trying to understand why this page was created in the first place so let me explain: the article was created so that the Leonhard Euler article was kept to reasonnable length and remained highly readable for non-mathematicians. As is always the case when such things are done, the resulting article is indeed a copy of the original content and is meant to slowly evolve into something better. I'm not sure why you say that it's not your responsibility to expand the page: if you have a better idea then please be bold and do something about it but you can't simply run around and say "I don't like this, I don't like that" and expect people to follow your cues. The article already contains content that was intentionally kept out of the parent article like the bits on logs of negative numbers or topology. Pascal.Tesson 13:09, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand why the page was created, but I don't like the result. Text duplication is not desirable for maintenance reasons and since it may confuse readers; it is better to cut and leave a summary. But summary style doesn't work here because the topic makes up half of the original article.

The main article on Euler is already a fine overview that provides sufficient context to link to pages on more specific topics. This page duplicates the overview functionality and will only ever be able to contain a little more detail since it is already about half the size of a full length Wikipedia article. Besides not being helpful to readers, this inefficiency makes structural editing difficult. I'd prefer more specific articles, like Seven Bridges of Königsberg and Basel problem (more ideas: Leonhard Euler's influence on mathematical notation, Leonhard Euler's use of power series, ...).

I'm not just basing my opinion on this article on hypothetical speculation; I've seen (and myself created) pages like this before and know that they cause trouble. But more power to you if you prove me wrong!

you can't simply run around and say "I don't like this, I don't like that" and expect people to follow your cues

Of course I can; the purpose of talk pages is to say what we like and don't like for others to listen to. But if by "following cues" you mean that you think I'm trying to force you to do something, I recommend WP:TEA. Fredrik Johansson 14:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Correctly defined?

I removed the claim that Euler correctly defined log(-1). A definition can be more or less useful, but cannot be correct or incorrect. Also it was not a stupid definition the pre_euler people had. In introductory calculus it would simplify many fomrulas if log(-x) = log(x), in addition to preserving the additive property.