User talk:Richard L. Peterson

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[edit] Welcome to the Wikipedia!

Hello, and Welcome to the Wikipedia, Richard L. Peterson! Thanks for fixing the typo over on the Diebold article. Here are a few perfunctory tips to hasten your acculturation into the Wikipedia experience:

And some odds and ends: Boilerplate text, Brilliant prose, Cite your sources, Civility, Conflict resolution, How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Pages needing attention, Peer review, Policy Library, Utilities, Verifiability, Village pump, and Wikiquette; also, you can sign your name on any page by typing four tildes: ~~~~.

Best of luck, Richard L. Peterson, and most importantly, have fun! Ombudsman 18:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hermitian matrix : reply

1)I've heard only this about automorphisms of the complex field besides the triv. and conj: that they're everywhere discontinuous, & there's a lot of them.Is it actully known whether any (or all)besides conj. are of order two?

I've been studying mathematics for more than three years now, and I have repeatedly tried to get to the bottom of this. I've asked several professors, but confusion even seems to be running rampant among them. (Not that they are bad, in fact : one can prove Fermat's Last Theorem). I don't know about the discontinuity thing. What my professors seem to agree on is that there are infinitely many INVOLUTIVE automorphisms on the complex numbers, if you accept the axiom of choice. Apart from the usual conjugation, I never found an example of another... which is usually the case when the axiom of choice sneaks up...

Are there noninvolutive automorphisms of the complex numbers? I don't know whether or not this is a known result. I'd say there are some more.


2)Has anyone worked on what to do for the generalization of symmetric matrices to "hermitian" if one has, say, a field with an automorphism group of order 3, or worse, an automorphism group isomorphic to the symmetric group on three elements? I'm very interested.

What exactly do you mean by "what to do". In any case, I've never seen anything like that. Maybe order three becomes relevant in the study of trilinear forms? But I don't know if you are familiar with projective geometry and its fundamental theorem, but when you classify polarities and you work it all out, you can really see why the involutive character is of that much importance.

I'm sorry I can't be of that much help (I'm not a professional (yet)).

But you reminded me that there is still some work to do on Hermitian things on Wikipedia. A lot has been written by people who are into functional analysis and work with the complex numbers and conjugation, and they consider other fields with involutions as an "extra", which is not the case at all, when one studies finite geometry, one encounters the word "hermitian" just as often.

Greetings, Evilbu 10:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Those pesky constants

Hi Richard. Nice meeting you. I reverted your last edit at Radius of convergence, where you added "plus a constant" to your examples. I don't see why this constant is necessary: the derivative of

h(z) = -\frac12z^2 - \frac16z^3 - \frac1{12}z^4 - \cdots

is

g(z) = \log(1-z) = -z - \frac12z^2 - \frac13z^3 - \frac14z^4 - \cdots.

Am I missing something? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:17, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Hi, Jitse, nice to meet you, and thanks for considerably improving the exposition of the example. You're right that in your much clearer power series, "(plus a constant)" is unneeded. But because I was too hurried/lazy to figure out how to indicate a summation etc, for "brevity" I didn't specify C(1), the coefficient of z, to be zero, forcing the "(plus a constant)" to be tacked on afterwards.Rich 03:35, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I see what you mean. Glad to hear that you approve of my change to the example. See you, Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Darwin Awards

Richard, I see you've been trying to clean up this POV, spamlink, promotional, mess of an article. Well done. I've pitched in myself and removed sections which I feel shoudn't be there. The term is not owned by Ms Northcutt, although on reading previous versions of the article, you could be led to believe that it was. -- I@n 17:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

  • I've just looked at the article. What you have done is quite good. Thanks, it was beginning to drag on me.Rich 21:07, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
    • WP:BB -- I@n 06:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
      • I don't know how to copy or move text. I have avoided wordprocessing & putting in attachments to email and "drag text" commands since 1990. I guess I could copy everything but nah.I'll look into it asap.Rich 06:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MathWorld

Thanks for drawing that mistake to my attention, Rich. I have replied in full at Talk:MathWorld. Blarneytherinosaur talk 03:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Heyas, it looks like you did some good work cleaning up the prose and eradicating weasel words. Thanks for the note calling my attention to it also! -SocratesJedi | Talk 23:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On your anabolic steroid article edit.

You added an 'experts needed' template to the anabolic steroid article. However many experts in the field of endocrinology and related fields contribute to that article and already review it. If you have an objection to any specific material in the article and believe it to be inaccurate then please post a topic in the articles talk page and voice your opinion so that we can discuss it. However adding templates without knowing the history of an article is not a good thing to do.Wikidudeman 19:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Look, Wikidudeman, I do respect your point of view and appreciate that you want to make the article as good as possible. But [1.] The talk page for "Anabolic steroid" is an unpleasant place where flaming is done but little discussing. The two or three editors who try to be civil and focus on the the article are at best treated to curt replies like "So do it Adam" if their changes are approved, with no thanks for their hard work, and at worst have their edits attacked as "butcherings." So I didn't want to go on the talk page unless I have to. Nor is it required. [2.]The "expert needed" template is in my view quite necessary in an article that is health related and in which editors can't agree on important issues. We owe it to the readers.[3] According to the talk page, you stated that you removed it in August 2006 because you didn't think any experts had been attracted to it. So when did these experts show up? Before the template went up or after August 2006? Who are they? If it's the scientific peer review on Wikipedia that you mean by the experts, remember that they're not necessarily experts on steroids. [4] Your message above is a pretty harsh rebuke for a good faith edit even if it had been faulty, and I resent it. Remember that courage is different from rage. Please, I know you mean well, and don't realize how your rebuke feels at this end, but it doesn't help cooperation and drives away editors. I hope you don't want to drive editors away.[5] I am in middle of contacting experts from Harvard, Stanford etc to see if someone will look at this article. If any of them does, let's be friendly and polite even if we disagree with them. I will put expert needed back up although I do respect your opinion [6] I'm not against steroids. I bet they will become safer and more effective in the future. But we have to be responsible.Regards, Rich 05:55, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


Richard..[1]It's wikipedia policy to talk about edits and changes that are made to any articles on their talk pages. This prevents edit wars. [2] Many wikipedia articles are health related and there are no 'experts needed' templates on them. [3] I had a few templates up on the article however this was before I realized we already had many expert editors alteripse being one of them. [4] I have the article set up for 'peer review' so that it can be qualified as a 'good article' this is just one more of the steps that these types of articles require to be qualified. Although this article has technically been reviewed by dozens of experts, adding for peer review is simply one more step. It has nothing to do with it having or having not been reviewed before. Now you SHOULD post your argument for the tag in the talk page of the anabolic steroid article. If you don't defend your adding of that 'experts needed' tag in the article itself then I will continue to remove it until you defend it's being there. This is wikipedia policy. I will start a topic in that talk page for you to defend your placing of the tag in. Wikidudeman 06:46, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA thanks

Hi Richard, and thanks for your participation at the recent RfA, which did not succeed. For those of you who expressed their support, your kind words and your trust are sincerely appreciated. For those who were opposed --especially those who offered their constructive criticism-- please accept this message as assurance that equally sincere efforts, aimed at enhancing the quality and accuracy of representations within the Wikipedia, will continue. Striving for improved collaboration and consensus will also continue, with all of your insights in mind, while applying NPOV ideals as fairly and reasonably as possible. Ombudsman 06:01, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit summary for reverting

Thanks for reverting a recent vandalism of Fibonacci number. Note that WP:Revert says: 'Be sure to add the word "revert" (or "rv") to the edit summary'. No big deal, but it makes it easier to follow the page history. PrimeHunter 01:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks.Rich 03:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] mehmet

Mehmet is "the Turkish interpretation of Arabic Muhammad". JRSpriggs 09:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

ThanksRich 19:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Light speed article

Hi,

Could you have a look at the Speed of light article and the discussion? An editor in Hungary has decided that a formula is wrong and resents my efforts to clarify matters. He was probably the one who blanked the article. At least he has promised to make trouble.

Thanks. P0M 23:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

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