User talk:DavidCBryant

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Welcome to my talk page. I'm always glad to hear from you, and I will respond (either here, or on your talk page, whichever seems appropriate to me.) Beat me over the head and shoulders with WP:AGF and similar guidelines if you want to, but please understand that statements of general policy can never replace sound judgment. dcb


/Archive 1: The Good
/Archive 2: The Bad
/Archive 3: The Ugly


Contents

[edit] Thanks for the welcome

...and tasty cookies, too. May I steal a copy of your Caltech banner? I'm too busy (pronounced "lazy") to make one of my own; besides, the directions are too intimidating. I have a license to post it on My page. Here is evidence of my license: D.E.I. (1984). Good to meet you. GrammarmongerTALK 17:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


Thanks for the flag. Now, the speed of that was scary! I'm far away overseas, and have to go to sleep now. Good night!

Coat of arms restored, for now at least. Now I hope to really sleep...Grammarmonger 18:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Now that was fast! I barely had time to feed the birds. Thanks, Gm! DavidCBryant 19:09, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Still can't sleep. The name Joe Decker more than just rings a bell, but I don't recognize him from the photos on this page.

Mine is a Blue and Gold Macaw. Very noisy and loves to chew wood. Like raising a permanent two-year-old. What kind are yours? Grammarmonger 18:53, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

While reading the OrphanBot page, it occurred to me that simply restoring the image might get me "blamed" for posting it. Might it soil my otherwise pristine reputation in here, or get me into real trouble? If so, perhaps I should take the image back off and discuss it with the OrphanBot administrator, or just wait until the original poster discovers it's gone and makes a proper terms of use page for it. What do you think about this? Of course I have no idea who uploaded it first. Grammarmonger 07:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I notice you put up a new Caltech box. I like the old one better, because it has the color scheme of the flag, at least as it was when I went there. Where can I find the code for the box on my page? I just want to change the wording from "This user is or was a student at the" to "This user is an alumnus of the" while keeping all the rest as it is. I'm still not too good at navigating in Wikipedia. GrammarmongerTALK 15:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for editing my Caltech banner! (and yours too, I see...) To say I wasn't interested in finding the code and fixing it myself isn't entirely true-I've been wanting to have the time but extremely busy is all. It's final exam week here, my some 450 students are awaiting their final grades for the term, and I'm still in the middle of all my other work, while trying to plan my own education for the next two months (I usually spend Feb/Mar in Taiwan practicing baguazhang), among other things. I really appreciate that you did all that stuff for me. I owe you acoupla (a coined word of my own) favors. I'll start having more time in a week or two. Let me know if you need anything. My macaw (named "pigu") is screaming REAL loudly right now. Thanks again! Gotta go! GrammarmongerTALK 14:35, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About vandalism

Hello, David. You posted me a note to use the Undo button to revert vandalism. Well, as I'm not very computer-literate, could you please indicate me where it is, to make my life easier, and avoid unfortunate situations like this? Of course, wiping out the image was completely unintentional, sorry for that. Orthologist 23:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Farever

IMHO Farever (talk • contribs) is almost certainly Amorrow (talk • contribs). If so, however, what do we do about it? -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Probability notation

Hi,

as far as I know, \mathbb{P} &\mathbb{E} are standard notation for prob. and expectation (resp.). Of course, Pr & E are also common, as well as Prob & M etc., but are you sure you want all the probability articles to use your notation? That looks like much work, and not necessarily very productive.

Best, Sasha

[edit] Friedman

Thank you for your long answer and apparently it took you such a long time, it's very nice of you. Now I have understood the philosophical difference between Friedman and the Austrians. However, only one question I cannot understand, and that is: as you said the Austrians focus on the science of human action and individual will to maximize utility, but how would that be "deductive logic"? since the definition of deduction is "inference by reasoning from the general to the specific". Using individual human action to economy sounds more like reasoning from specific to general. Can you explain it for a little bit? Sorry for any ignorance, as I am still a student who hasn't take economics class. Thanks! Wooyi 01:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Elliptic functions

Hi. Thanks for your comments. I didn't know about the page for Apostol. I've been meaning to add the book by Chandrasekharan for some time now....do we have any details about the author, other than his book?

best wishes, Robinh 14:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess he's from India (Bengal?). :) I'll have to dig around a little bit on that, because I've never seen any of his books. Oh – I take a special interest in Apostol, because he has been on the faculty at Caltech for such a long time. I never took a course from him, but I did have to buy his calculus books. DavidCBryant 16:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I did a little bit of digging around, Robin. He's Komaravolu Chandrasekharan, an emeritus professor at "ETH" in Zurich, where he has apparently spent almost his entire career. He was born in 1920 [1] and has published books mostly in German ... the English titles I found include "Introduction to Analytic Number Theory" (ISBN 978-3540041412) and "Elliptic Functions" [ISBN 978-3540152958]. I also noticed that he's written about Andre Weil and Armand Borel for the AMS. That's about as far as I'm going to get right now, but I'd say he's a notable living mathematician who deserves to have a Wikipedia page, just based on the fact that he also edited Hermann Weyl's collected papers (Gesammelte Abhandlungen: Band 1 bis 4 [ISBN 978-3540043881]). DavidCBryant 16:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advertising

Hi Mr. DavidCBryant,

I added my original contents for the world to view. How your calling it Advertising?

It is all my social contributions only. Your behaviour is uncivilised and not religous too. I made product differntiation only and all are relevant only. regards, Manik762007 The preceding unsigned comment was posted by Manik762007 at 13:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Parametric statistics

Go head, my bad :P Kareeser|Talk! 21:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Hi, Thanks so much for educating me. Sorry for my ignorant behaviour. Manik762007 06:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)Manik762002

[edit] special characters

I got your message. Even in your message, the character ⊆ shows up as a small square. And both of the tables you referred to show a large percentage of the squares (I'd seen one of them before). And I asked about this problem at the help desk a week or two ago and they told me to change them to the math method, which I did in Empty set and one other article. Now I see that you changed Empty set back, and the characters are back to the boxes. Bubba73 (talk), 15:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

You're right. I did change it back. You got bad advice at the help desk. I'm trying to help you get a better set of fonts installed on your machine. Give me a little time and we can solve this problem without mucking things up for thousands of other people and placing a greater burden on Wikimedia's graphics servers. DavidCBryant 15:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I responded on my talk page. There must be thousands of users in the same boat I'm in. Bubba73 (talk), 15:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, maybe. I haven't seen too many complaints about ⊆, though. It's a pretty well standardized symbol. DavidCBryant 15:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
That's strange, there should be many people with my setup. That character shows up as the small square, and I estimate that more than half of the ones in those tables you mentioned are that way too. One thing - they are OK in Mozilla Firefox, but not in IE. Bubba73 (talk), 19:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I wonder if other people might be having the same problem. If you go back a few days on set, under basic properties of union and intersection it said "is a subset of" instead of any symbol. Then someone put in the symbols. That is a symbol I can't read. I wonder if other people have the same problem is why it said "is a subset of" instead of using a symbol in the first place. Bubba73 (talk), 19:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I think this problem is tougher than it ought to be. I just jumped through a lot of hoops with my Windows setup (IE 6.0). I installed a compatibility package from the MIT instruction page, and verified that I had the proper fonts installed in Windows to display a large variety of MathML characters. I double-checked all my compatibility settings in IE's "Internet Options" dialog box. And now, what do I get?
I get fairly good performance out of Firefox under Windows, and really crappy performance out of Internet Explorer. I've done some reading, and it appears that IE can't find a good glyph unless it's included in the basic font selected from the "Internet Options -- General -- Fonts" tab. So that means the only way to get good translation of MathML symbols under Internet Explorer is to find a really complete Unicode font all in one big file, and install it, and then select it as the default font for everything. The only fonts I know of that fill the bill are shareware. I'll let you know if/when I come up with anything that works better. Oh -- I'm sorry. I thought this would be easy to resolve, but it isn't. Mozilla and Linux have a much more flexible system for handling glyphs from multiple font files than Microsoft does, apparently. DavidCBryant 21:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Well...you're probably right

Yes I typically do try to read the articles closely (unless super obvious), but it just so happens I'm probably too gullible (which i am told is not yet an entry on wikipedia). I had second thoughts about Mild constant, and thought about just labeling it as a straight stub because it is kinda out there. My real debate however was whether it qualified for the physics or math stub. The reasons I was debating that is because I viewed it as a physical constant however fishy, so I was thinkin' things like, "If i came upon Plank's Constant what would i do?" The thing about constants is that a truckload of math is used to find them (as is indicated in the edited article), but they're used a truckload in physics. I put it under math because it didn't seem like it was to the physics ready stage. Anyway, all this to say, I probably thought about it TOO much. I also didn't know the hoax tag existed, I kinda looked around for a pseudoscience tag, but didn't find one. Thanks for keepin' me honest. D-rew 04:35, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again! D-rew 16:40, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I didn't know about the "hoax" tagging procedure, either. I was just going to ask for a "speedy delete". But when I read the instructions for that set of tags, I learned about the "hoax" category. So then I had to go read about WP:PROD, and then I (finally) understood enough to apply the right tags.
Working on this stuff is fun, but there certainly are a lot of procedural rules! DavidCBryant 16:52, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Is there a list of all the tags? Cause I've been intermittently putting them on articles when I've seen it done on similar articles before, but it's all been sort of a trial & error method, kinda like the rest of Wikipedia I guess. I'm just glad most people don't get mad when you make a mistake, man would I be in trouble.
Also, I added this on the thread on my talk page about the talk page gaffe, but might as well add it here so you see it. "Is it kosher that I went on your talk page and fixed it? I know user pages have some taboos about editing around other people's stuff. Hope i did the right thing, and thanks again for the help." D-rew 17:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I don't mind if you edit little things on my User page, or on this page. Like moving this discussion from the top of the page to the bottom? Thanks for doing that. I think the big deal for most people is actually altering what somebody else said. Fixing up a little spelling mistake here and there is probably OK (depends on who you ask). Changing someone else's comments (or even your own, after a significant amount of time has passed) so the meaning and import of those comments is altered? That's definitely a no-no. :-(
I haven't found a comprehensive guide to all the templates used to tag articles. So far I've been a lot like you – I discover these things by trial and error, more or less. There might be a table of "WP" shortcut names somewhere … that would probably lead one to all the important tags in the Wiki-universe, because people only make up the shortcut names for heavily used articles. I'll look around for something like that and let you know what I find, D-rew. DavidCBryant 17:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing topics in mathematics

Thanks for you comments in the missing topics page - Skysmith 22:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. Thank you for digging up some truly odd names from the history of mathematics. I had never heard of Evangelista Torricelli before I started digging around yesterday. DavidCBryant 12:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Well

I like your new quote =->. It's just that honestly everyone has honestly been very kind whenever I've made a gaff or didn't know how to do something, which is contrary to most of my other internet experiences. D-rew 23:18, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

Thanks for the message. Yeah I'm a Rudd, currently a senior. We just recently had our own house wiki set up, so I've been going crazy playing with it, and then dabbling a little with real Wikipedia. Do you know if there is a banner for current Caltech Students somewhere out there? If not, how can I make one? Thanks. Ctetc2007 14:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] notation nitpicking

Also, notice this difference:
N-1
N − 1
Michael Hardy 21:13, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
sorry I didn't catch all the poorly coded stuff in complementary sequence the first time through, but after putting in about 75 or 80 of those non-breaking spaces (to make the big long vectors look better) I just got tired.

Actually, the non-breaking spaces are not the essence of what I was saying; I was pointing out that

  • in non-TeX math notation, one should italicize variables (but not parentheses or other punctuation and not digits);
  • a stubby little hyphen doesn't always look like a minus sign;
  • spaces (sometimes non-breaking, but that's not the most important part) should precede and follow "−", "+", "=", etc. (But in things like "−x", where it reverses positive and negative, rather than representing a binary operation, there should not be a space.)

All this makes it consistent with the style conventions used by TeX. Michael Hardy 20:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Michael, I think those are all good rules. I do my best to follow them at all times. The problem is that there are a lot of other editors who aren't nearly as fastidious about the appearance of articles as you and I are.
Here, take a look at generalized continued fraction. I'm just about finished working on that article (the history section needs a little more information, and I should insert one more section about further generalizations involving operators, and "fractal fractions" that branch out in more than one direction, but I haven't gotten around to it yet). Anyway, if you inspect the notation in that article I think you'll see that I've got a pretty good idea of how to code things in both TeX and HTML. There might be a few hyphens where there ought to be an −, but most of it is fairly clean.
I wasn't really annoyed by your comments on the math talk page. I thought it was a little bit funny. So I tried to make a joke – sometimes my wife calls me a gorilla, or an orangutan, or maybe even a baboon. The only point I was trying to make is that since Wikipedia is being written entirely by volunteers, a certain amount of sloppiness is to be expected. I did put in about 30 minutes cleaning up one section of complementary sequence. Then I had to go do something else. If you thought it looked bad when you came along, you should have seen it before I put a half-hour's effort into it.
Anyway, I'm generally sympathetic to the idea that standards for style, and idiom, and overall presentation should be high. Some of the poorly written articles (often contributed by people who speak English as a second language) really make me grit my teeth. I can be a hothead, too. But most of the time I'd rather just make a little joke to let off steam, instead of getting angry. DavidCBryant 21:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Erdös Number debate

There is no "significance" to these categories, they are just a quirky game. Osomec 14:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Osomec!

After noting your cavalier attitude toward things mathematical, I visited your user page. Then I got curious, and decided to investigate "Category:Golf". Lo and behold, it contains 24 subcategories, and seven articles. And all of that for a quirky little game! ;^> DavidCBryant 00:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

PS I don't care how you vote on such debates. That's your business. I do wonder, though, why you would even want to vote on a question that only affects the mathematicians. I'm sure I'd muck up the voting if I ever decided to participate in one of the debates about golf. Why are so many people willing to act like experts in these deletion debates?

Perhaps because they are interested in and think about categorisation, which is rather more relevant to the issue than mathematics. Wikipedia is one project and should have consistent standards and presentation. If subject editors made in each area made all the presentational decisions wikipedia would be chaotically inconsistent. Who do you think makes the structural and presentational decisions for Britannica? Probably expert encyclopedists, rather than mathematicians, or theologians, or anyone else with irrelevant specialist knowledge. PS. Wikipedia is probably the best reference resource on competitive golf that exists, and there are more English-speakers that are interested in golf than in high level mathematics. Osomec 00:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Indian mathematics

The version to which you reverted to does not have the citations which I worked to provide through my examinations. I will see that every citation needed tag receives a citation. I have not blanked any material except the "Charges of Eurocentrism" which clearly does not belong in an encyclopedia as per WP:ENC. Being 23 I'm not as eloquent as most people but judge my edits for yourself. My "agenda" is providing citations and my statements will make things clearer. If working my ass off to provide citations is vandalism then I'll have to keep at it. Regards. Freedom skies| talk 16:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Blanking an entire section of an article the way you did does constitute vandalism, in my opinion. Your citation of WP:ENC is specious. Many of the sources you referenced are either unreliable or unverifiable, in my view. When I have enough time, I will take a closer look at those references and help you identify the ones that are appropriate for Wikipedia. A citation of a book must include not only the name of the author and the title of the book; it must also include the publisher, and the date of publication. Oh – I might have had a more tolerant opinion of your recent edits to Indian mathematics if you hadn't been running around adding the "semi-protection" template to a number of articles today. You're not an administrator; you're not acting in good faith when you put that particular template on a page. WP:AGF does not say that I have to be both blind and stupid. DavidCBryant 17:21, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
I still have to craft a reply to both you and the Rfc between breaks. If anything at all is not according to Fowler's (or your's) definition of WP:RS then I'll provide additional sources; my agenda is to replace all the citations needed tags with citations after all. My whole version, for which I worked (and will continue to work) through my exams has been reverted and people are already commenting without hearing my statement. I'm depressed already ! and it's not even complex maths yet! Anyways, an anon attacked the article and that's why I attached the tag which would help against anons (although it didn't). Being a Shaivism Hindu has again acted against me as people think I provide sources for "an agenda." I have yet to see the RfC and read my talk page specifically but I thank you for the "Best of luck with the examinations. Have a great day!" God knows I can use some good wishes for my next test. Regards, Freedom skies| talk 01:25, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Also, the semi-protect template does not provide protection, it just warns of it. So adding it without actually protecting the article is dishonest. JRSpriggs 09:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi David, Thanks for commenting on the Talk page. At your convenience, you may want to update your comments, since Freedom skies had added his statements. Also, it was felt by some that your comments were about the people rather than about the citations. Sorry for the extra work, but an update would be great! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for calling a spade a spade. I am sick to death of people crying WP:AGF when they're called on their sh!t. CiteCop 02:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for review

Hi, I have carfted a version for Indian mathematics. The version can be accessed here.

Kindly compare the version with the present Indian mathematics article, the version which to which I edited earlier and the version prior to my involvement:-

I have:-

  • Removed every single peice of quotation. The quotations ranged from glowing praises by Lapalce and Einstein to critisisms by Professor Dani. The material may belong under "Indian mathematics" on Wikiquote but it clearly will not find it's place in Encyclopedia Britannica.
  • Provided citations for extraordinary cases. I will in time provide citations for the whole of the article.
  • Removed the very odd "Charges of Eurocentrism", which is based on personal opinions and in it's best form may find place in a newspaper or a magazing article but certainly does not belong in this logbook of knowledge.

It would be helpful if you voiced your opinion on which version to keep. Please forgive the minor mistakes, if any, in grammer and puncuation. Since some editors have been aggressive and meanacing, I have had the uncharecteristic inclination to work on Wikipedia through my exams and I will make a check for these mistakes. Regards, Freedom skies| talk 04:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Indian mathematics

Greetings, I was involved in the RfC in Indian mathematics. My efforts were directed towards creating a version such as this one, as compared to the this, this and this version. My efforts initially began with removing misrepresentation of quotaions and then I tried providing some of the "citations needed" tags with actual citations. The situation resulted into an RfC, timed during my examinations, to which I could admittedly, not work on adequately. Fowler&fowler has asked me to work with him but since I am sitting my examinations and the article has been edited extensively since the RfC by other editors I no longer can keep up the pace. My exams will continue and after that I will be leaving, taking a few days off WP. I have reviewed my future with the Indian mathematics article, and have come to the conclusion that since I am under time constraints and am under such pressure in real life that adequate responses or editing actions on "Indian mathematics" are just not possible for me right now. I can't contribute to it in the manner that I usually would; it would be unethical to the extreme to ask the other editors, who have wished me well during my examination, to wait. The article is under the watch of many good editors and I see and hope that it's quality benefits from the present situation. Many regards, Freedom skies| talk 02:01, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inductive symbol

The primary reason I removed the {{prod}} tag was that I was unconvinced by the proposed deletion reason (Non-notable concept (no ghits).) The article is not about the words inductive symbol, but about a five-pointed symbol, which is, obviously, non-googlable. As for whether this article is a hoax or not, I haven't seen enough evidence to decide. (The article could easily be proved not to be a hoax, but it would be more difficult to prove that it is a hoax.) I have added the deletion discussion to the list of Australia-related debates in the hope that some Australians will contribute information. Spacepotato 00:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, we do have one opinion from an Australian math guy:

I'm from Australia and I've never come across it. darkliight[πalk] 06:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I also notice that you haven't voted on the AfD that followed the PROD. Not that you have to. But if you really want the article to stay, why not vote? Oh – it probably seems like no big deal to you. The other day I hit an article that was definitely a hoax. The hoaxer was a guy who has been banned from Wikipedia indefinitely, and who hits us from time to time by making new accounts from different IP connections. I put a PROD tag on it, the author of the hoax removed the tag, and then I had to spend about four hours (all together) going through the AfD process, and doing more research to be sure the debate would go the right way, etc. Four hours is a lot of time to be wasting just to prove that a hoax truly is a hoax.
Please keep watching this one. I'll bet the Australians, if they respond at all, will say they never heard of it, ever. DavidCBryant 01:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
If it is a hoax (which I suspect that it is), then no one will have heard of it. So they will not be able to say that they know anything about it one way or the other. Thus we must put the burden of proof on the people who claim notability it to provide citations. No one has done so (yet). JRSpriggs 11:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] recent prod

Obviously she is borderline at best, based on the small number of WoS references I found to her papers, such references, not biographical articles, appear to be the standard in science, and accepted in AfD when they are impressive enough. --see the AfD debate. To call it to the attention of the subject people, I should have listed it on AfD myself, not just deprodded, and I apologize for my laziness.DGG 19:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, apologies aren't really necessary, DGG. I've gone through this process with a few articles already. The PROD is quick and painless for the originator. The AfD takes a lot more work, both for the originator and for the community taken as a whole. All I want is for people who remove PROD tags to make some effort to weigh the merits of the cases for and against deletion. The standard I set for myself is that I'm willing to argue the case for keep in an ensuing AfD debate. If not, I just leave the PROD tag alone. DavidCBryant 19:49, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Christina Sormani

Thanks for notifying me. Re your comment, I removed this article from proposed deletion because it was earlier proposed and contested. As per our policy, proposed deletion is only for uncontested deletions. Spacepotato 23:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Funny quote of the day

FYI, I thought your remark about factorization so funny I posted it on my page ... linas 00:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Linas! So am I famous, or notorious? ;^> DavidCBryant 00:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thank You

Thank you for reinforcing my errors. But please understand, even though it is not an excuse, I did not intend to vandalise anything - I was truly trying to help the community, but... Ended up doing the opposite. Any further advice I can be given about how to properly edit articles would be a huge help to me.

I hope you understand, Megazodiac 14:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 69.233.150.38

Hi! Being fairly new to WP, is there anything that I can/should do to help with instances like 69.233.150.38? Thanks! -- Whereizben - Chat with me 16:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, that was the guy who de-PRODded six articles in just about two minutes. I don't think there's anything much that you can do when an article's PROD tag is removed, except to propose it for deletion under WP:AFD, if you really feel strongly about it. That and try to reason with them. The other day DGG de-PRODded an article I had tagged. So I wrote to him, and he said he thought this particular person (an associate professor at NYU) is already "notable". But when I nominated the article using AfD, DGG actually did some research and changed his vote to (neutral), instead of "keep".
I've noticed a couple of people (including Spacepotato) who apparently monitor the list of articles proposed for deletion, then run around removing the PROD tags to make the deletion process more difficult. I guess I have to assume good faith. But some of these guys sure seem to be gaming the system.
If I figure something out (like what to do about it), I'll let you know, Whereizben. In the meantime I'll just try to grin and bear it. DavidCBryant 17:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the great explanation, and sorry I took so long to get back with you. I do appreciate it though, and understand that there probably is not much else to do except for deal with it and to try to reason with people. If you ever do dream up something though, let me know! Have a great day. -- Whereizben - Chat with me 18:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bloch Space

You're right - I'm used to \mathbb{D} as standard notation for the open complex unit disc, but it won't hurt to say so explicitly. You're welcome to do what you like with the rest of the article; I don't know anything about it - it was on the list of "very old requests" so I thought something was better than nothing. ArzelaAscoli 16:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] complex numbers ordering

Let c1 = a1 + b1i,c2 = a2 + b2i

You can verify that c_1 \leq c_2 \Leftrightarrow a_1 \leq a_2 or a_1 = a_2, b_1 \leq b_2 is an order relation.

Maybe the guy who wrote it in the first place had something else in mind, but the formulation wasn't good. --Rcog 00:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think the original author meant to include a statement to the effect that C can't be ordered in the same way the real numbers can be. Your ordering doesn't preserve familiar relationships, like positivity. For instance,
1 + 2i > 0 and 1 + i > 0, but (1 + 2i)(1 + i) = −1 + 3i < 0.
I noticed the same thing when I looked at this article a while ago (although I thought of a different definition of ordering, using Cantor's mapping of the complex plane into the real number line). Maybe we can think of better wording to make the point that any order relationship imposed on C cannot have the familiar order properties of the real numbers under multiplication and addition? I think that's important, but I'm not certain how best to say it. DavidCBryant 00:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Complex_number#Real_vector_space feel free to rephrase :-) -- Rcog 05:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, it's buried deeper in the article. Maybe that's the only place it belongs.
When I started working on this stuff, there was almost nothing in the article complex plane. So I spent about six weeks adding verbiage. You have sharp eyes, Rcog. I'd appreciate it if you could look that article over, to be sure it doesn't have any silly little gaffes in it. Thanks! DavidCBryant 11:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Well ... school keeps me busy. I won't be doing an extensive review anytime soon, but I'll still be hanging in the math section, so if I see anything odd ... -- Rcog 01:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hey

Thanks for the intro, David. I'll check out those articles and check out the math talk page. Nice to meet you. R00723r0 21:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk Page Etiquette

I'm sorry; thank you for telling me, however. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by R00723r0 (talk • contribs) 23:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

No problem. I had a little trouble learning what that little "+" sign is for when I first signed up myself. DavidCBryant 23:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Carl Jockusch

I'm not planning on editing the page further. I'm not sure what a "PROD" is - does that just mean marking it a stub? (I should probably have marked it a stub when I created it - I'll fix that now.) I simply created it as I wanted to name him as one of the co-originators of the Low Basis Theorem which is a fairly important and useful theorem in mathematical logic (it is used in computability theory, model theory, reverse mathematics, and algorithmic randomness, and probably elsewhere) and didn't want a redlink. I didn't realize I needed to assert he was notable - if he wasn't, I wouldn't have made the page in the first place, as there would be no reason to have a page for him! Althai 23:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for writing back, Althai. I didn't know he was associated with an important theorem. It's probably best to add a little more to the article to make that clear. I'll take care of it if you don't get to it first. DavidCBryant 00:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Berger code

Hi David. You're right, Berger codes are like parity-checking: they can only detect errors, and no correction is possible. I made the correction (:-)), thanks. I don't know much else about Berger codes, I just read something and wrote that stub, since there was a red link in Error detection and correction. So, I'll leave future improvements to someone who knows better -- unless I find some useful info somewhere, of course. Oh, and thanks for your welcome! Bye, Mitchan 21:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC) PS: I thought this article would go unnoticed, but it seems not so... :-)

Thanks for fixing that up, Mitchan. I noticed your article because it showed up on the new math articles list. If you're interested in helping to review new articles about mathematics, you might want to look at it once in a while. DavidCBryant 22:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help:Formula

You might want to take a look at the above page with regard to MathML. Note it's possible to change what your served via wikipedia preferences Nil Einne 19:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incidentally

Any idea what your going to call the fourth archive yet? Nil Einne 19:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't really thought about it, Nil. Maybe "Go ahead, punk – make my day"? ;^> DavidCBryant 22:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Euler's continued fraction formula

Hi David, I am not sure if you are still monitoring the Euler's continued fraction formula page - I've posted some comments there. Best, Arcfrk 03:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Freedom skies

Hello,

I've requested an arbitration regarding the conduct of Freedom skies and listed you as a party because of your previous interactions, specifically at Talk:Indian mathematics as well as, I see, here on your own personal talk page.

Can I trouble you to write a brief statement at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Freedom skies about your impressions of Freedom skies' conduct as a Wikipedia editor?

A summary of your relevant comments at Talk:Indian mathematics and here on your talk page will suffice.

Thank you.

JFD 21:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Slang vs. Scatology

You have as much right to complain about my scatology outside the articles as I have to complain about slang outside the articles; which is none.

Inside the articles, it's a whole different story.

Assessing "elegance", what the devil* might that be, it's not relevant, as far as any encyclopaedia is concerned.

Come on... "loss of elegance"??? Are you freaking* kidding me? What the devil* is that supposed to mean?

Really, this kind of "poetic phrasing" shouldn't be allowed in any objetive, denotative exposition.

If the intention is saying "simplicity", then say "simplicity" already. Otherwise, it sounds like "beauty". And noticing the "loss of beauty" of an alternative set of axioms is utterly irrelevant and subjective.


(*) To show what a nice guy I am, I specially curbed my scatology on your talk page, in your consideration. And I don't even fucking know you. The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.164.220.194 at 22:17 16 March 2007.

Oops! Had a little slip of the tongue right near the end there, pal. Oh – I didn't exactly complain about your language. I merely characterized it, and tried to explain that you'll get more co-operation from other editors if you behave yourself, instead of acting like a jerk all the time. DavidCBryant 22:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Hehehehe... that "slip of tongue" was supposed to be a joke... :-)
The thing is I am an actual jerk. And you know how they say you should always be yourself. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.164.220.194 (talk) 22:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC).
No. You should try to be better than you are. JRSpriggs 08:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Stirling's theorem"

(Referring to the comment you made on my talk page) I was curious why you thought I didn't know of the Stirling's approximation page. In the Stirling's theorem page that I created, I actually linked to the Stirling's approximation page. I just wanted to let you know that the reason I had created the page was because it was originally on the Requested Articles page (even though the Stirling's approximation article existed), and so I was under the impression that the page I created was desired in addition to the Stirling's approximation page. Anyway, I don't think it matters too much when there already is information on the subject. Tachikoma's All Memory 02:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Freedom skies

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Freedom skies. Please add any evidence you may wish the arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Freedom skies/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Freedom skies/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, - Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 02:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OZ equation

Hi!

Thanks for creating my talk page! I was just more concerned with adding information than examining the Wiki-community! The Ornstein-Zernike equation is widely used in the field of physical chemistry (or chemical physics if you like ;-) ). I categorized it in thermodynamics and integral equations (which it is). The last category is purely mathematical in nature so perhaps I should also add a physical chemistry category tag there. Thanks for your comments! Joriskuipers 12:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism project help

I was hoping you could take a look at our results on the vandalism study project (which is now finalized) so that you could help us write up our conclusions. If you want to help check out [2]. Thanks Remember 22:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stress majorization

Regarding your comment about the Stress majorization article: At the time I applied the speedy delete tag, the article consisted on one or two sentences that made no sense to a mere mortal such as myself. There was not enough context to show what it was. The author should have created the article in the sandbox or elsewhere first, as otherwise it looked just like many of the other countless two-line articles about a garage band, someone's best friend, a wrestler on some obscure circuit in Mississippi, or some kind of anime. I apologize for being a bit hasty. I will say, though that the article's subject is way too technical for the vast majority of readers, so if there's some way you folks can make it a little less technical, that would be good. Realkyhick 05:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, Realkyhick, you apparently don't understand what I'm asking of you. Please be nice to other editors.
I don't have time to read through your archived talk pages, so I just looked through the stuff that hasn't been archived yet. Here's what I found.
  • You put a speedy deletion tag on KTron, and it was actually deleted, then recreated.
  • You labeled Geoemyda yuwonoi as a hoax within ten minutes after tha author started to write it. If you had run a simple Google search you would have located this academic paper with about 10 seconds of effort. You might have even incorporated some of the information from that paper into the article, instead of labeling it first as a hoax, and then as unreferenced.
  • You tagged Steve Allott for speedy deletion within one minute after the author started to write it. It took the author 90 minutes to finish writing the article. 90 minutes isn't quick enough for you?
  • You tagged Rickshaw Inn for speedy deletion within one minute after the author started writing it. You got a rise out of the author on that one.
  • The author of Perfection (Latter Day Saints) wrote to you saying "You added a 'noncompliant' tag to this article eight minutes after I first created it."
  • You put a speedy delete tag on Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe within one minute after the author started to write it. It took that author 37 minutes to write a fairly good, well-referenced article. 37 minutes isn't quick enough for you? At least you didn't call this one a hoax.
  • You put a speedy delete tag on Stress majorization within six minutes after the author started to write it.
So that's seven articles in a month where you interrupted a contributor who was writing something new for Wikipedia and made that author deal with the tags you had placed (instead of working on the new content). And every instance might easily have been avoided if you had simply checked the history page to see that the article was under construction.
I'll say it again. Please be nice to your fellow editors. (Oh – as to your request for "less technical" math articles, I'll see what I can do. But math is technical, so some of the more advanced articles are going to be hard for most people to understand. Knowledge is like that.) DavidCBryant 11:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
David, I have already apologized for being quick on the draw with the Stress majorization article, and then you rake me over the coals again, ironically telling me to be nice to other editors. As for telling users to use the sandbox, that is standard procedure that many other editors use (that's where I got the idea). If you will take the time to look history at the articles I've listed, you will find that almost every one of them was nothing more than a sentence or two, with little or no context. In that respect, they look no different than the typical "'The Garage Band' is a major influence on the culture of greater Sheyboygan" or "Jason is the coolest person ever" articles (and those are the entire text of the article). However, I'll give folks a little more time when it isn't obvious vandalism. Sometimes I think I get into a "rhythm" of putting speedy tags on articles which are obvious candidates and may ding one or two that, in retrospect, need lesser action. Having said that, if you look at my overall counter-vandalism work, you'll find that my "hits" are far greater than my "misses."
As for the Perfection (Latter Day Saints) article, the noncompliant tag was placed because the article was written as a statement of doctrine, with the only references being scripture; that is not the encyclopedic tone required for Wikipedia articles. As you can see by the very lengthy discussions on the talk page (very few of which involve me), there are still issues related to my concerns that are being debated, so I stand by more original action on that article.
As for making the math articles less technical, I realize that's a pretty tall order, and way over my head, but if there's a way to do it, it would help push the article toward good article status. This is one of those things that is "Do as I say, not as I do," because I haven't the foggiest notion of how to simplify an article such as stress majorization, so I'll leave that to folks smarter than me, which is a pretty doggone large pool. :-) Realkyhick 17:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I certainly don't intend to "rake you over the coals". I'm making a simple plea for civility here. Just exactly how hard would it be to look at the history page for an article before you tag it for speedy deletion? Please show a little consideration for your fellow man. You save ten seconds by ignoring the article's history, and the author of a new article gets to waste five or ten minutes writing to your talk page. That's not fair. Please think of others as equals. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's all. DavidCBryant 18:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Thanks for yet another Welcome

I have just found your welcome on my user talk - page. Thanks for it.

Concerning my article on Robert Fricke: I most assuredly have a lot of (expert) material on this mathematician and quite possibly will add some of it to Wikipedia. Still, I am not too sure, yet, if I can fully subscribe to the editorial policy of W., so for the moment I'd prefer to watch my favourite corners and see, how they develop.

Having said this, my pet project consists of the biographies of a number of 19th century mathematicians, who were students of Felix Klein in one way or another. I have seen, that a large number of these still are stubs, so a lot of work would be necessary.

Finally, there already is the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. A large number of (but not all) important mathematicians already have substantial, albeit sometimes anecdotal articles there. In fact the Klein article in Wikipedia is very, very, very similiar to the MacTutor one. Thus the big question is, if there really is the need for another collection of biographies in W.!

What do you think?

E. H.-A. Gerbracht 22:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../d/a/v/User_talk%7EDavidCBryant_6394.html"