Wikipedia talk:Requested articles/Mathematics

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Contents 1 HTML4? 2 topology 3 Copyvio 4 redirections 5 lp sequence space 6 space subset 7 Reconstructive surgery 8 ..."Wiener measure"? 9 One article requested 10 Quantum Mechanics 11 signature of a knot 12 Lagrange error bound 13 Boundary logic 14 Mathematicians (alphabetization) 15 Discrete mathematics? 16 MathWorld? 17 removed misplaced requests 18 Conway's game of life in reverse 19 Multiple Versions 20 E9 (Lie algebra) 21 Information theory 22 RA formatting standards 23 Date/place wikilinks 24 Lemmas

[edit] HTML4?

Character entity is mentioned at Table of mathematical symbols as having something to do with HTML4 - someone knows where else to put the request? Mikez 02:43, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] topology

strong topology is dealt with in the weak topology entry

--Mathmuncher 17:40, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Not sure that exhausts the possible usages, though. Charles Matthews 18:53, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio

Copyvio problems: the Jean Morlet article should be relisted. Charles Matthews 11:58, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] redirections

Minimax theorem has been redirected; but perhaps not very appropriately. Charles Matthews 16:58, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] lp sequence space

Regarding the requested article "lp sequence space": there is a section on them in Lp space. So I wanted to make lp sequence space a redirect to Lp space. Unfortunately, it is not possible to have a title start with a lower-case letter. Now I don't know what to do; any suggestions? -- Jitse Niesen 13:41, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

For a redirect, Little-lp space would be OK. On a page, it might look a bit silly, but one can hide it in a piped link! Charles Matthews 14:18, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

As I understand it, the purpose of redirects is that if a user types "xyz" in the go-to box (in the upper right corner), and xyz is actually defined in the page abc, then the redirect xyz -> abc brings the user automatically to the page abc. However, it's rather unlikely that somebody looking for information on \ell^p spaces types "Little-lp space", so it seems rather useless to create the redirect "Little-lp space" -> "Lp space". Note that I only want to be able to delete "lp sequence space" from the list of requested articles. It might be argued that one can already perform this deletion now, as there is an article on the \ell^p spaces, albeit hard to find; what do you think? -- Jitse Niesen 17:09, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, one can see redirects in backlinks, which can sometimes be helpful. Also, the policy is to create ample redirects, since they are rather cheap in resource terms, may cut down the increasing amount of duplication. But I don't mind, really. We have already used many more bytes discussing this!

Charles Matthews 17:57, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

You're right. I created the redirect. -- Jitse Niesen 20:38, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] space subset

space subset was linked only from Leopold Vietoris. I think it refers to spaces of subsets (see Vietoris topology on topological space). The relevant passage was added by someone interested in supercentenarians, so may well have been incorrectly copied. Can the link on this page simply be deleted? Rvollmert 16:50, 2004 Jul 26 (UTC)

[edit] Reconstructive surgery

I have (a) replaced super-almost-huge cardinal since the page was deleted, and (b) put back jet bundle, which was a frivolous (IMHO) redirect. Charles Matthews 09:21, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] ..."Wiener measure"?

Is there REALLY a theorem in the study of Probabilities called "Wiener measure"? I literally laughed myself to tears when I saw this. Better now than in class, I guess (halfway through a university semester of Intro to Probabilities).

Errr - try growing up? Charles Matthews 11:28, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I do wonder about a lot of these things - can anyone prove these things exist? I think that someone has just been editing putting random mathematical words together for their own amusement. There are also a load which have a name but are rather vague. Definition (mathematics) for example. What did whoever put that there expect? mattbuck 22:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] One article requested

• V. International Mathematical Conference (Cambridge, 1912)

Gubbubu

[edit] Quantum Mechanics

Why is QM listed under Mathematics and not physics? Even the most abstract mathematical physics should be listed under physics because real mathematicians can see there is still a lot of hand-waving going on. --ub3rm4th 21:05, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] signature of a knot

Just created signature of a knot, based on MathWorld

[edit] Lagrange error bound

Regarding the request

Lagrange error bound - Unknown definition, featured on question 6(Part c) of the 2004 AP Calculus BC test

added by an anonymous editor: Does anybody know what the question is? My guess is that Lagrange error bound refers to the Lagrange form of the remainder term in Taylor's series (see Taylor's theorem). -- Jitse Niesen 11:20, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

   ----Lagrange Error Bound is used to determine an apporximation of error in a Taylor Polynomial.  I wouldn't know how to explain via Wiki, however.

The Lagrage Error Bound is the error between the Taylor series and the actual function. The Lagrange Error Bound is also called the remainder for a Taylor series. The official definition is the difference between the actual value of the function and the nth partial sum that approximates the function. You can find the term by using this:

R_n(x) = (fⁿ⁺¹(a) * (x-a)ⁿ⁺¹) / (n+1)!

[edit] Boundary logic

I've taken these off the page: they were anyway in the wrong place.

Boundary logic axiomatisations - J. Spencer-Brown axiomatisation - W. Bricken axiomatisation - L. H. Kauffman axiomatisation -

These relate to the laws of form, so-called; which is at best marginal mathematics; and articles on different ways to present the system seem to me over the top. Charles Matthews 16:25, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mathematicians (alphabetization)

What's standard with non-capitalized parts of surnames -- de Bruijn, von Neumann, etc? My understanding was that de Bruijn goes under "B", von Neumann under "N". I guess the Category tag would have to be a rather unnatural-looking [[Category:Mathematicians|Neumann, John von]], but that's OK. --Trovatore 16:00, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I think it depends on context: a Dutch phone book would alphabetise me as Sanden, Hugo van der, but the UK phone book puts me at van der Sanden, Hugo. The fact this is the english language WikiPedia is an argument for the latter approach. Hv 10:56, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I have the same kind of issues at List of mathematicians, with the added difficulty that I need to teach a bot to alphabetize automatically. I also eventually settled to van der Sanden, Hugo (listed however at S), but I am still not sure about many Arab names and East Asian. So, if in the future you run into the List of mathematicians, and notice some improper split into "Last name, First name" format, or improper alphabetization, please lend a hand and fix it. :) (My bot does not attempt to change names already formattted in "Last, First" manner, it is concerned only with newer names showing up, so it will not modify your changes.) Oleg Alexandrov 16:26, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discrete mathematics?

Is there any reason why the category Discrete mathematics is missing? The closest existing category I could find was Set theory, which is not quite the same. Normally, I would just be bold and add it in, but this is a special project page. Vonkje 11:27, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Go ahead. I at least have no qualms about adding another section. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 12:09, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Is there any actual discrete-math topic on which you want to request an article, or are you just planning to put an empty category there? Not that I mind either way. But I wouldn't assume there'll be a rush of requests just because you add the section. --Trovatore 16:41, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MathWorld?

Would it make sense to take the index of MathWorld and add all non-existant entries to this list of requested articles? —BenFrantzDale 20:07, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Generating a list of articles on MarthWorld and checking it against Wikipedia for missing articles seems like a great idea to me. I don't think that the results would be best placed here though. There are other such lists for other reference works, for example see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles and its subprojects. In mathematics see also Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/PlanetMath_Exchange. A good place to discuss this further might be at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Paul August ☎ 20:55, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, generating the index would be nice. I would like to see it when it is done. But I agree that putting all those articles as requested articles is not a good idea. As Paul says, see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/PlanetMath_Exchange where we attempt to review/copy articles from a different website (which is free, unlike mathworld). Oleg Alexandrov 23:32, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Such a list, were it to exist as independent entity, is one of a class of things that have recently been agreed upon as running a significant risk of being a copyright violation (Wolfram's copyright covers their index even independently of the content of each topic) and similar lists have been deleted by administrative fiat (i.e. Jimbo wanted it done). However incorporating a list of topics that they have and we want to have along with similar lists from other sources or requests people have independently made is presently accepted (though some dispute the validity of even this). So, if you wanted to add their topic list to this page, it would be okay under the current thinking. One of the issues here is that we do not want to be seen to be republishing their index or any mechanically generated large subset of it. Dragons flight 00:35, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I've put up #, A, B, and C of the index at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/PlanetMath Exchange/MathWorld. Unfortunately, the list is so long that Wikipedia won't let me post all of it – it times out. I also included the Perl script to generate the list. —BenFrantzDale 01:36, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it is good to split it into several smaller lists. Wikipedia is slow recently, and 250 K of text is way too much for a single page. By the way, a lot of those links show up red because they are made up of capitals, like Orthogonal Group for example. Doing some lowercasing (Perl's lc() function) would take care of that.

I will now put an announcement at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. Oleg Alexandrov 03:19, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm positive that I've already seen this list somewhere on wikipedia. A long list of red links that have extant mathworld articles. As I recall, capitalization made a lot of false positives. I don't remember where I saw the list though, someone's user page. Maybe Charles Matthew's? I'll see if I can find it. -Lethe | Talk 03:57, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Visit one of those red links, and do a "what links here". That should give the answer, if the answer exists. Oleg Alexandrov 04:03, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Missing science topics. It looks like the list was there, but was since deleted, according to some policy decision. -Lethe | Talk 04:27, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Did no one read my comment? This list falls squarely under Jimbo's don't steal lists of articles from our competitors prohibition, which is why the seperate lists of articles in Encarta, EB, and other encyclopedias were deleted. As in that case, it is generally believed that we are reasonably protected as long as missing article lists are not single source, hence the Encyclopedia lists were recreated as a merged topic list. You can ask that to happen here as well, but simply republishing Mathworld's index is a copyvio of their index (and yes the index by itself is subject to copyright protection). Dragons flight 04:22, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Crap, I apparently missed it. Interesting. I had no idea there was prescident for this. By that standard, the list is obviously not OK. It seems interesting since there is nothing stoping someone from requesting, or starting stubs of, every page from MathWorld not on Wikipedia. The problem seems to be that the index itself is copyrighted, not that copyright somehow prevents me, personally, from using MathWorld's index to find holes in Wikipedia. Hmmm... (PS, thanks for notifying me directly; I just missed your edit above.) —BenFrantzDale 04:44, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I have now killed the list. Dragons flight 04:52, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] removed misplaced requests

I have removed the following requests from the order theory section:

Composite Trapeziod Methods - Composite Simpson's Methods - Adaptive Simpson's Methods

They were added by 141.151.173.98. They belong, if anywhere, in the "Numerical analysis" section --Trovatore 22:36, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I see that Jitse's taken care of this. --Trovatore 22:38, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Conway's game of life in reverse

Is this even a useful article to want/have? From what I know of CA, isn't Conway's game non-reversible? --PeruvianLlama^(spit) 21:30, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Exact phrase has only 18 hits in Google! DFH 20:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple Versions

I think that for most mathematical topics, we should have multiple versions for people with different backgrounds. People can then choose to see either more generalized or more concrete explanations by clicking on links. Do you guys think this would be worth the community's efforts? --anon

It would be a nightmare to maintain, and I think there is a policy about not having multiple articles on the same topic. The current consensus is to start articles simple, and have them become more complicated as one reads along. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:25, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

There is the Simple English Wikipedia, these articles are addressed to lower levels of English and mathematical usage see for example simple:Algebra. --Salix alba (talk) 08:30, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] E9 (Lie algebra)

Theres a request for E9 (Lie algebra). Does this actually exist, I though E6, E7, E8 were exceptional lie algebras and there is no other example in the sequence? --Salix alba (talk) 14:46, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

There is an E9, as an affine Lie algbra. One classification that ends at E8 is that of the finite-dimensional simple complex Lie algebras - if you are prepared to extend the class you're talking about, E9 can make sense! QuantumGroupie 19:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Information theory

shouldn't this have a section? Or does it go under physics? (or computer science for that matter)

[edit] RA formatting standards

Please see: Wikipedia_talk:Requested_articles#Bullets_or_no_bullets.2C_dense_vs._sparse. Dragons flight 18:49, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date/place wikilinks

I haven't checked who did it, but, although the addition of dates and places for mathematicians may be helpful in determining which person of that name we are talking about, it breaks the bots which maintain Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics/Current_activity.

[edit] Lemmas

I have just copied most of the redlinks from the list of lemmas article. There are some that I could not categorize. DFH 20:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)