Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Augustin Banyaga

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. - Mailer Diablo 01:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Augustin Banyaga

Augustin Banyaga (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Appears to fail the professor test. No actual claim to notability included in the article, as far as I can see. Guy (Help!) 16:15, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Fails notability. Wikidan829 17:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Perhaps the page's creator could add what was so significant about this professor's contributions. Someguy1221 17:45, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per changes to the page. Someguy1221 00:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

• Delete The article fails to assert what important contributions or advancements the subject has made in their field to establish their notability. --Ozgod 19:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Non-notable --† Ðysepsion † ^{Speak your mind} 22:43, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. Notable mathematician, he has made significant contributions to symplectic topology. Banyaga has 58 articles listed on MathSciNet -- that in itself is quite significant -- of which 2 are published books (not something trivial in this subject). Furthermore, MathSciNet lists him with 126 citations from 93 distinct authors. Sounds quite notable to me, I do not understand the above claims that Banyaga "fails notability". Are these claims based on any serious considerations, such as a study of the relevant literature? I kind of doubt it. Turgidson 03:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. The man is clearly a notable topologist - plenty of references on MathSciNet and Google Scholar, well-known (within the field) book and an Erdős number of 3. Bigdaddy1981 03:48, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. He seems notable enough to me given the info provided by Turgidson and Bigdaddy1981. He seems "more notable than the average college instructor/professor" and thus I think he passes the professor test. Article should, however, include more information about his notability--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:48, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. -- David Eppstein 06:35, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep -- the sentence, "He has made significant contributions in symplectic topology, especially on the structure of groups of diffeomorphisms preserving a symplectic form (symplectomorphisms)" clearly outlines what his significance is in the field. I'll admit that I don't know what that means! :) But the editor has intended it to show the importance of the professor (tenured at important university), and I would need an expert (David?) to point out why these advances are not significant before I would trust myself to offer a delete. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 06:48, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• I know nothing about symplectic topology, sorry. —David Eppstein 07:20, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Stare at this this until you understand what it means, and stop wasting our time. Stammer 07:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. He certainly looks notable to me. Two books and a lot of papers as a Professor at a notable research university is most likely to mean notable, so improve, not delete, is the way to go. --Bduke 08:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Even though no explicit descriptions of this man's work is in the article, one can peruse Google Scholar a bit to tell notability. Having, for example, over 100 citations to a single paper on symplectic topology is indeed significant, as this is an area of pure mathematics, which in general does not rack up nearly as much citations as more applied subjects. However, one doesn't usually say "his papers on such and such are widely cited", but something like "he has made important contributions in such-and-such". So that latter statement is indeed a claim of notability, which was included in the nominated version. The nominated version mentions a book, which is indeed widely cited, although I must admit to being somewhat puzzled at the papers selection. I would think [1] (with 101 citations on Google Scholar) would be at least as significant as those listed. Amusingly enough, this paper is extensively reviewed on MathSciNet by David Epstein. Shame on you, David, for pretending to have no expertise here! Oh, and thanks to Turgidson for cleaning up the article greatly. --C S (Talk) 12:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Thanks for the kind words, C S -- I tried my best to improve the stub I found a while ago, but the article clearly still could use improvements. As for the choice of articles, I don't know why the first two from PAMS were chosen (maybe because they contain some of the work mentioned in the WP article?), but earlier today I added 3 more articles published by Banyaga that look substantial, including the one in CMH you also mention, plus articles in Inventiones and JDG, all top-notch journals, of course. Turgidson 12:31, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

One more comment: Well-known differetial geometer André Lichnerowicz once wrote an article titled Remarques sur deux théorèmes de Banyaga, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Sér. A-B 287 (1978), no. 16, A1121--A1124 MR0520419, in which he said: "A. Banyaga [Comment. Math. Helv. (1978)] has recently given a remarkable study of the connected component Symp₀(W,F) of the group of the symplectomorphisms with compact supports of a symplectic manifold (W,F). We give some propositions, useful for mathematical physics, which are direct consequences of the results of Banayaga". I hope this nails the "notability" question, once and for all. Turgidson 14:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - now passes notability test. Gandalf61 14:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep IAS fellowship, now included. Even failed careers (and this is not one) would be notable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:45, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Subject meets WP:PROF as a notable mathematician. Yamaguchi先生 07:20, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.