Talk:Jonathan Bowers

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This article was nominated for deletion on July 14, 2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

Contents 1 Incoming redirects 2 Polychora 3 Googolplex 4 Redirects 5 Guapamongaplex 6 Array notation 7 notability? 8 References needed

[edit] Incoming redirects

Many of the redirects recently added which refer to this article seem to be boarderline neologisms or even protologisms. They seem to be in contention with Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms. Are all the redirects really necessary? And can they all be substantiated that they all first originated from Jonathan Bowers? If not, then some of them should be deleted I think. What are your thoughts? --HappyCamper 05:56, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

• I don't see any need for redirects from the number names; in any event, I've cleared all the illions that aren't on his web page. User:Ben Standeven as 70.245.238.114 04:48, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• Redirects are cheap. I don't see any problems with the redirects at least for now, especially the infinity scrapers redirect. Stop war! 17:11, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polychora

Exactly what Polychora has Jonathan Bowers named? 64.192.107.242 00:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

• Most of them from what I can tell. No need to list them here though. (p.s. deleteing comments from talk pages is considered very bad form). --Salix alba (talk) 02:13, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree that they shouldn't be listed here, but was just curious as to which were named. 64.192.107.242 02:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure yet...I haven't looked at the sources. Hopefully I'll get to it soon. --HappyCamper 02:30, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I think User:Salix alba has already given me the answer that it was most Polychora. I don't really want a list of them. 64.192.107.242 02:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC) P.S., are they actually acronyms? If so, do they stand for anything? This article says that they're acronyms. 64.192.107.242 02:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I really don't know...I just sort of stumbled onto this article. I guess some of the redirects I mentioned above are sort of harmless...lol...well, we'll see. You can improve the article in the meantime. I really don't know what else to add to it at the moment. --HappyCamper 04:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

For the Bowers style acronym for Uniform polyhedra there is a sort of logic to the names. Take the initials of the long form name and add extra vowels to make a pronounceable name. So Great Icosi-Dodecahedron becomes gid and Great Stellated Dodecahedron becomes Gissid (a couple of extra i's and an extra s). I believe the Polychora follow similar logic, but I've not looked into this. --Salix alba (talk) 09:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Googolplex

Wasn't it Edward Kasner who created the name of this number? At least, according to the googolplex article. - Mike Rosoft 20:24, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

• If Googolplex and Googolduplex were not coined by Jonathan Bowers, why are they listed in the table at all? - Mike Rosoft 22:54, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
  • For comparison. Fairly well known numbers, their inclusion gives a term of reference for the other numbers. --Salix alba (talk) 23:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redirects

Do we really need to create a redirect for every single term in this article? --Hetar 02:52, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

• I believe they cause no harm. Someone might actually type one those terms in the search box looking for information on them. Doorstop54 18:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Guapamongaplex

Whoa! This number is big. I don't even know how many zeroes it would have. Doorstop54 18:54, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

---

It seems that the X,X and #,# notations were not explaned in the article. Does anyone know what the definitions are?--SurrealWarrior 20:32, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Try Bower's home page. Virtually all the info on this page has been taken from that. Good luck with trying to comprehend the notation, it can be rather mind spinning. --Salix alba (talk) 16:15, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

After a few failed attempts, I asked Bowers himself for a more detailed explanation. He replied with the following: "Since my web site I have made some modifications to array notation. Here are the new rules and some description of tetration arrays. The Xa,bX notation has been upgraded to {a,b / 2} which is more powerful. Superextended arrays are now referred to as tetration arrays and above.". Do you think it would be wise to begin including his updated version in this web page (or on a new one for array notation)?--SurrealWarrior 14:41, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Possibly. I've only given some very basic examples of the notation to give a feel for how it works and refer the interested reader to the website. We would need to be clear of avoiding original research and ensure that it is verifiable. I don't have time myself to devote much time. Fleshing out the details of his array notation is a good task to do as it would help make it understandable. I'm sure another persons explination of the notion would help make it understandable for all. Whether wikipedia is the right forum is another queston. --Salix alba (talk) 19:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

There's now an array notation page that can help explain some of this. Jonathan Bowers' array notation. Helicoptor 15:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Array notation

I'd like to explain why Bowers array notation is interesting, and important, to quote Munafo

At this point we return to the work of Jonathan Bowers to introduce his array notation. This notation is elegant, powerful, relatively easy to use and covers a greater range than any other discussed on these pages, within the limits of functional formal systems.

this notation supasses the notations of both Conway and Knuth (who I suspect you may have heard of). So to answer the question what is the largest finite number every conceived of? Bowers is you man. For the question what is the largest finite number ever named Bowers again.

So why is it actually important? Well much of mathematics is concerned with arguments for all finite numbers, it may help to actually understand how big big can be. Maybe you think of getting to infinity just by added a few more zeros on the end, nope that does not even get close. There several other tricks which can be tried which get you part of the way there, most of these are representable by Bowers notation. I feel it is worth some time to try to get a feel for the notation and maybe understand infinity a little better.

Its also important for the sake of mathematics and education. Large numbers are one of the most accessable branches of mathematics, every child I know has played with naming big numbers. Encourage this and we may end up with a few more mathematicians.

Theres also a tactical reason, for keeping the information here. If you don't then within a few weeks some anon is going to go to names of large numbers and insert the names there. By having the information here you will save a lot of reversions on the other page. Notability well Bowers pages have a google page rank of 4 so I guess some people are interested.

So hes an amature mathematician who preferes not to publish in journals, many have followed the same route. Bowers is one of a small group of pioneers into the vast ocean of numbers. --Salix alba (talk) 21:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Interesting? Yes. But as long as he hasn't made it into The Guinness Book of Records, it should be published on his web page, not Wikipedia. —Ruud 22:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] notability?

Is Jonathan Bowers really notable enough to merit an article on Wikipedia? True, his work is really fascinating to read about. However, "Jonathan Bowers" returns less than 10 relevant hits on Google. --Ixfd64 16:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ixfd64 - there is no obvious notability for this person. Moreover, most of the material here is not related to the person, but is apparently original research by the person being described. Does anyone know of a reason to keep the page? CMummert 13:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I also agree. You can name all the numbers you want, but it doesn't make you a notable mathematician. The whole thing reads a bit like a vanity page, although I'm certainly not suggesting he posted it himself. I think it should be removed. Adking80 21:18, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

This bio article is poorly written, certainly, but I find this notabilty question more than a little subjective and unanswerable. Who decides whom is noteworthy?! I'm betting when Bowers dies, there'll be interest in preserving his notes from those that knew of his work, whether ever widely published or not. There's much better debates out there than this offensive question! Tom Ruen 23:13, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

To answer your question: the Wikipedia community decides, based on Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Discussing notability is perfectly fine. Weregerbil 16:31, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References needed

This page, like every wikipedia page, needs references. WP:V says that personal web pages do not count as references for the purposes of wikipedia. I believe that this entire page is original research. Please do not remove the references and original research templates unless you actually add references. CMummert 13:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

See the Array notation section above where Robert Munafo's discussion on Bowers' work is dscussed. Technically I'd say this is not original research, Bowers has done original research we have simply reported on it. --Salix alba (talk) 13:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The standard, as I understand it, is that unless this material has appeared in print it is considered original research even if somebody else writes it up. Here are why this page doesn't appear to fit the guidelines of wikipedia:

• It is a biography of a non-notable person. WP:BIO
• It has a lot of nonbiographical information despite being a biography page.
• The nonbiographical information is unsuitable for moving to its own page because it appears to be a collection of neologisms that have never appeared in print and are not accepted by the general mathematics community. WP:V

CMummert 14:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate Bowers work, but I can't defend inclusion here. Sorry! I can take partial responsibility for starting inclusion of his work by referencing his polyhedron acronym names to list of uniform polyhedra, since they are used in web-based resource tables. However they are not published anywhere in print to my knowledge, even if certainly it ought to be! Tom Ruen 03:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)