User talk:DavidCBryant/Archive 2
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This is an archive page for User talk:DavidCBryant. Please do not alter it. dcb
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[edit] Motivation
- A cf cannot be "motivated" -- it is inanimate.
The OED disagrees with you. It includes citations back to 1949 of "motivated" applied to the inanimate result of a motiv. For example, "The vast majority of pictures are sexually motivated." "Their actions appear ... strangely motivated." -- Dominus 15:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, well, I finally got around to dragging all 9 pounds of the good old OED off my bookshelf, and I still think the change I made is a good one. Apparently some authors (ca 1850) used the verb "to motivate" to mean "instill with a motif", as in "to put flowery wallpaper in two or three rooms of a house". In more modern usage, though, the word is generally taken as a synonym for "to stimulate", more or less.
- Using phrases like "the song was motivated by a desire to express his burning love" is figurative speech that is easily understood -- clearly, the author of the song was motivated (or stimulated) to write it. In writing about mathematics, though, I would rather avoid such figures of speech most of the time. DavidCBryant 18:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
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- Well, you changed "continued fractions are motivated by..." to "the study of continued fractions is motivated by...", which is not consistent with either the ratinale above or with the one you put in the edit summary. What you really meant was something like "the mathematicians who invented continued fractions were motivated by...". -- Dominus 00:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Areas of mathematics
Thanks for you intro for the Analysis section in Areas of mathematics... I trimmed the historic information, as though releant, it quite doesn't fit with the main aim of the article (to explain the nature of the multitude of mathematical fields). Unfortunately, the article has to be always breif and concise - otherwise it would get very big, very quickly. Tompw (talk) 18:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't delete all your prose, only the historic material... my point above was that the article explains about maths as it is, rather than how we got there. I agree with you completely when you say the material is dry and potentially dull, and there is absolutly room for more general prose, espically under the big section headings. Also, thanks for adding info on recreational mathematics. Tompw (talk) 19:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
- Woth regard to page size... it used to be that certain browsers couldn't edit pages over 32KB in size. The problem sn't around, but the idea of 32KB as a maximum size for articles. As it happens, this equates to about 20 minutes reading for the average adult, in line with a typical attention span. So, WP still flashes up an alert if a page is over 32KB in size, because it provides a useful indiactor that the page might need shortening, or breaking up.
- Anyway, Areas of mathematics is no where near that size. I wish all the headings would get expanded (shocking grammer that), so it would be possible to get an idea of how much to write in the way of intros etc.
[edit] NPOV discussion: Does quoting Stroock's statements violate NPOV?
This is about the wiki article Manifold Destiny and related talks:
NPOV refers to "representing fairly and without bias all significant views that have been published by a reliable source". It doesn't mean wikiusers must balance the number of characters of the verifiable statements from two sides, or reduce statements from both sides to a few harmless sentences. In contrast, Daniel Stroock, Michael Anderson and Joseph Kohn were all interviewees of Nasar when she wrote the article. Their views are "significant views", and the quotes are from reliable sources. In regard to the quotes of their statements, NPOV only means "representing fairly and without bias Daniel Stroock/Michael Anderson/Joseph Kohn's views that have been published by a reliable source". I am really surprised to see that NPOV is interpreted to be constant & instant deletion, and used as a weapon to threaten other wikiusers.
As to the threat, I mean the following sentence you posted on my talk page: "I will be watching this article, and you, for a while, to be certain that you understand and adhere to the NPOV policy." What do you mean by "watching" me "for a while"? What were you thinking when you posted this threatening sentence? Can you stick on the definition of NPOV and stop threating people by using NPOV as a weapon? Do you really understand what NPOV is? --Jiejunkong 04:05, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What I believe: NPOV = Putting everything on the table
I come to wikipedia to learn things. I guess this is the purpose of creating an encyclopedia. Therefore, I believe all wikipedia policies will eventually help people learn things, rather than blocking people from seeing the truth.
Interestingly, I also find the three major content policies, namely Wikipedia:Verifiability Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, coincidently relate to a British/American legal case, where the witnesses must provide verifiable and admittible proofs, the judge and the public want the lawyers (of the plaintiff and the defendant) to show everything on the table, and finally the jury should produce a neutral and objective verdict. Of course, this time everything is with a touch of computer networks, so there is some difference on other dimensions.
Hence comes what I believe: NPOV = Putting everything on the table. You see a biased 1-side affidavit. That's fine. As long as all presentable and verifiable facts are put on the table, you have the ability to combine all affidavits together, then you have NPOV. You cannot delete the affidavit and blame those people who offered it to you. Blocking the view of facts only blinds yourself and make you more biased.
Let me tell you something you may not know about the Perelman-Yau-Nasar incident. I am trying to put it on the table, so that there is less misunderstanding, but I don't think I am capable of doing that given the current context. I believe many people who have read the wiki-items about Perelman-Yau-Nasar are more biased than before. This is not good because it only breeds more hatred and prejudice.
The fact I know is like this:
- Grisha Perelman is a genius. You have known a lot from the Wikipedia, so I will tell you the other side of the story. He is a hero in terms of geometry, but an anti-hero in terms of math community buildup. He is a nice person who does not offend nobody, but also exhibits autism to some degree. During 1990s, he was offered lots of chances to do postdoc or even tenure-track in US, but he refused. He also had problems with his Russian collegues and quit from his research lab in Saint Petersburg. Perhaps without such autism he won't be such a genius (this is a guess). As to Poincare's conjecture, he refused to explain the three landmark papers after he posted them on arXiV manuscript eprint site in 2002 and 2003. His manuscripts need further elaboration, otherwise it cannot be called a formal math proof (that is the reason why there were 3 teams formed by various reasons to do this job). If he wanted to continue, then there would never been so many controversies afterwards. But for some reasons (not related to Yau because at that moment Yau and Perelman were strangers to each other) he decided to leave the math community. And then ......
- Here comes the controversial part. On one hand, many people in math community thought, what the heck? who are you? Everybody was born naked and has experienced as much frustration as you did. Even if you are a genius, you need to go through all the hard work to finish your job! On the other hand, people have gradually figured out that Perelman is a real genius who has the correct answer, so he should be awarded Fields Medal (which is the most competitive award in math community, the other more famous awards are more-or-less honors than competition medals). There you go. Perelman got the Fields Medal but he refused to take it. However, the way Perelman proved the conjecture obviously does no good to the math community. If this sketchy-but-correct style of proving math theorems becomes a convention, then the math community will go crazy and crashes. First, before the prover finishes the final touch, how can other people know the proof is correct? This is a chicken-and-egg problem. Second, as the final touch has little credit, then who will do it? Now you see why all three verification teams worked on a very slow pace? I think Cao-Zhu team produced more details only because Yau pushed harder on them (since they were Yau's students and the other 2 teams are not related to Yau). My personal guess is, Yau does have some opinions toward Perelman, but it is at a very normal level I described above. And if Perelman wants to work with Yau or anybody else, there's no problem at all. The math community was just having an ordinary day. Things were not ugly at that time, at most some everyday nuisance.
- Finally Nasar came and wanted to create another "A Beautiful Mind". Okie-dokie, we see the drama you have seen now. Somebody becomes demon, somebody becomes angel, somebody becomes rich, somebody becomes famous......
If you don't know some of these, then I think wikipedia has somehow failed. If you already know all of these and say nothing to make the situation clearer to other wiki-users, then you are as biased as me because not everything is on the table yet! --Jiejunkong 08:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Complex inequalities
I can't find it in the article. Where should I be looking? Mogmiester 18:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
