User talk:DavidCBryant/Archive 1

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This is an archive page for User talk:DavidCBryant. Please do not alter it. dcb

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[edit] My first message

Nobody has sent me a message yet, but I figure I may as well set this page up now. If anyone wants to send me e-mail, just <mailto:davidbryant@att.net>. DavidCBryant 15:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Welcome!!
Welcome!!

Hello DavidCBryant, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, please leave me a message!
Enjoy your first message! ^_^ -- ShakingSpirittalk 15:52, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Electron config context

Hey, I removed the context tag, since the page has been expanded and worked on a lot since i put it up. I don't remember exactly why i put up the context tag, but one usually does that if the page isn't "accessible" to people who don't already have a background in the subject. Links, and background information provide the context. But yea, it looks good now. Fresheneesz 22:03, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Applied mathematics

Anyone can provide ratings for mathematcis articles - see Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0 for details. Just make sure you copy your comments across to Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia_1.0/Applied mathematics. You might also find Areas of mathematics useful (and in need of expansion). Tompw 13:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Schumpeter

I poked and prodded this generally excellent article a little bit today. I need to go back and poke it a little bit more. DavidCBryant 13:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Passive voice

Just so you know, your recent edit at Gödel's incompleteness theorems — the one with the edit summary "/*First incompleteness theorem */ I hate the passive voice. And truth is timeless." — did not remove any instances of the passive voice, and indeed introduced three new ones.

(Personally, I'm not anti-passive-voice, so don't mind; I just thought you might like to know.)

—RuakhTALK 05:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I do hate the passive voice. But I also hate a clumsy sentence. Despite my prejudice, I will use the passive voice to make a sentence run more smoothly when I must.  ;^> DavidCBryant 11:11, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
That's a very enlightened prejudice you have. :-) —RuakhTALK 14:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Generalized continued fraction

Hello David.

No problems with you editing CGF as you see fit. To me, continued fraction means having ones on the numerators and positive integers on the denominators, but the generalized in generalized continued fraction should mean that all restrictions are off. I've been meaning to learn about (generalized!) continued fractions in complex analysis for some time now, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing some new stuff on GCFs!

best wishes, Robinh 22:02, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'm off and running with this one. DavidCBryant 00:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


Hi again David. The new content looks great. Keep it up! I'll have a detailed read When I Get A Minute (tm). Best wishes, Robinh 08:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Happy St. Nicholas Day

I hope you will be pleased by this edit to Continued fraction.

One of the hardest things to learn on Wikipedia is that it will not be obvious to other editors that you want X in order to have Y. Sometimes editors who reject X will also want Y; sometimes they will like Z which is about as good as Y; often they have assumed in their turn that Y is in the article already, and that therefore you must want Y' and Y'', which you think would be going too far.

Cranks never do learn to do this, but assume that since it is obvious that X implies Y, all the objectors to X must be evil Y-haters. This is half of Assume good faith. The other half is: treat cranks like gentlemen anyway (something I fail on), you'll feel better. Septentrionalis 03:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, PMA. I appreciate your candor and good will. But I'm not sure you understand where I'm coming from, yet.
I actually do know quite a lot about continued fractions. Besides the very limited use (representation of a real number in canonical form) the headline article says is their most important function, continued fractions have a plethora of uses in real and complex analysis. They are very widely employed to construct computer algorithms. They have served as the inspiration for many ideas in abstract algebra (integral domains, for example), and are even finding a niche in modern cryptography (Lucas sequences).
I'm going to add quite a lot of material about continued fractions to Wikipedia. Since I'm a very careful mathematician who tries to avoid contradiction and ambiguity to the greatest extent possible, it seemed that the logical place to start this project was by clarifying the basic definition in the headline article. Now I'll just have to get that done via a more circuitous route. DavidCBryant 19:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks ...

... for tidying up after me. I have never read all the guidelines either - I guess there are so many, and life is short! I really ought to get round to deleting that page anyway, I only created it when writing the first draft of a requested article (I think, from memory). Have a good day yourself! Madmath789 18:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quarters vs. "terms" at Caltech

The use of "terms" in place of "quarters" is near-universal now at Caltech, both in popular usage and in the official calendar. See, e.g., Caltech Today or the Caltech Academic Calendar 2006-07 (PDF).

Mhartl 17:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Philosophy of Math

Thanks for the reply on the Math Portal talk page. I suppose that the discovery of Pi was initially from measurement (it it would belong in the "here is how math was developed" intro). Sometimes, in my hubris, I forget that physics is just one portion of "Applied Mathematics". CaseKid 07:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Exponentiation

Just having somone else follow the page for a few days will be helpful, so that it is clear that the new version of the article is accepted by someone besides myself. CMummert · talk 23:08, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your desire to avoid contentious topics. I feel the same way - I would rather finish recursion theory than spend my time on exponentiation. I don't really enjoy it, but someone I respect asked for help and so I am spending some time on it. The difficulty is that I need other editors to watch the page so that it is apparent whether I am speaking from the consensus opinion or not CMummert · talk 01:59, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The example you put on my talk page is more of an example that the exponent rules don't hold for noninteger exponents. In my opinion, the issue at exponentiation is just that the article should reflect the common practice, which is not entirely self-consistent, rather than reinventing everything somehow to make it consistent. Similarly, the existing common notations should be used and described rather than inventing new notation. Bo Jacoby also argues about a hypothetical completely naive reader who doesn't know what π is, or what sin(x) is, etc. So long as you don't take anything personally, the discussion on the talk page has been pretty reasonable.

Anyway, thanks for watching the page and commenting from time to time. CMummert · talk 15:28, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hi

Thanks for your note on my talk page. You inspired me to hack up a hovse userbox. --Trovatore 08:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My user page

Thanks for the spell-check. Michaelbusch 21:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Quick on the trigger

Hi! Sorry about that... Occasionally I go through Special:Newpages and I guess my stub sorting instinct got the better of me. Hope that it didn't cause you to lose your edit or anything... GregorB 13:48, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: my edit to E

Sorry, I misread the formula; I see why it is correct now. Ben Standeven 01:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Complex argument (continued fraction)

I am sorry about my delay in getting back to you on this. I think that the article is correct and well written, but I am not convinced that it adds much. The continued fraction for logarithm in this case is almost identical to the continued fraction for arctangent. Your main point seems to be that it is somehow unseemly to use inverse trigonometric functions (due to their geometric origins) when working with complex numbers. I do not see why. Our article inverse trigonometric function deals mostly with derivatives, integrals, series, etc. rather than geometry. JRSpriggs 05:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Complex numbers

Sorry that I could not come back to you earlier sicne soemone else vandalized meanwhile (for the first time) my user talk page. Nevertheless, one policy I try to follow is WP:AGF and in this case here I see no reason for the opposite since someone tried to fix a perceived lack in the article which maybe is now clearer than before. This page is indeed a strange case but the only connection so far is the one user created a welcome page for the other. Take care. Tikiwont 16:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

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