Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hodgson's paradox

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 delete A mention may make sense elsewhere. JoshuaZ 00:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hodgson's paradox

Hodgson's paradox (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This is not a paradox. It was never a paradox. It was a mere observation (1-page note) by Hodgson of a well known fact that X/Y has Cauchy distribution for normal X and Y. Is this observation notable? Yes, and it may rightfully belong to properties of Cauchy or normal distributions. Does Hodgson have anything to do with it? No. Is it a paradox? No. If you search for Hodgson's paradox you will not get anything except for this Wiki article. Igny 23:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per nom and specifically per WP:V. No evidence that this is a paradox, no use of "Hodgson's paradox" in mathematical literature, no nothing. --Cheeser1 01:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
• Only occurence of "Hodgson's paradox" I could find was "Hodgeson's paradox of punishment" which is unrelated to mathematics -- [yaroslavvb]
• Delete. Ill-chosen neologism. As noted by nominator the few Google search hits all lead to this article. Google books + Google scholar together give one hit, but for a different "Hodgson's paradox" by a different Hodgson, directed against the doctrine of utilitarianism.[1]  --Lambiam 06:06, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. The fact that the standard Cauchy distribution does not have a well-defined mean is not a paradox. DavidCBryant 12:08, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
• Note to admins When I was nominating this article for afd, I created Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/reason by an accident. Could someone delete that? (Igny 14:18, 2 September 2007 (UTC))

done. DGG (talk) 19:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Could someone with knowledge of probability (and preferably access to the cited sources) review this? It seems like WP:OR but I would prefer to hear an (uninvolved) expert opinion. Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 17:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Even though I am involved, I consider myself an expert in theory of probabilities, and I do have access to the cited sources. (Igny 17:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC))
  • Response I've looked them both up, and although I am not an expert in probability theory, I am know a little (which is enough to settle this matter). You see, it's not the probability theory that's in question: it's the WP:V and WP:N concerns. Neither reference establishes that this is a paradox, or that Hodgson is necessarily the one who discovered it. Munley's note states that Hodgson "point[ed] out that X/Y has Cauchy distribution with neither defined mean or variance" (ie pointed out something that was already well known). Munley's note is, actually, a good source for the fact that there are often other ways to characterize these troublesome distributions (he gives an example and explanation).
  • Hodgson's original article (or note, perhaps, it's hardly what I'd call an article) speaks to normally distributed variables, and their sums, differences, products, and quotients, in terms of how he teaches such concepts. While the non-normativity of X/Y is labeled as "curiosity" and "paradox" by Hodgson, it isn't actually a paradox, and his labeling it a curiosity is neither new nor notable (certainly, it is not something that has been dubbed "Hodgson's paradox"). So while I'm not versed in probability, I don't think one needs to be an expert to see that these two articles do not support the notability/verifiability of this article and its so-called "paradox." (Unrelated question: is there a way to align one bulleted and one non-bulleted paragraph, instead of bulleting the second?) --Cheeser1 18:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The fact that the term gets zero Google hits should already be sufficient. Apart from that, the fact that the mean of the ratio of two independent normally distributed random variables is undefined is not deep; in fact, it should be completely obvious to anyone who understands the concepts involved, and it must have been well-known long before Hodgson was born.  --Lambiam 20:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, Google is only a crude measure of notability (although 0 is, crudely, 0). However, the term returns no results on any of the journals, libraries, or anything else I can search. I think that's far more relevant (I can search at least abstracts/keywords of quite a number of journals). There's definitely no notability or verifiablity here. --Cheeser1 21:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Thank you for your input, everyone. My first feeling was correct. Delete as non-notable, since it was referred to as a paradox, but not "Hodgson's paradox", and has not been apparently discussed in those terms (or any other).

Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 21:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

• • • • Delete and incorporate elsewhere There is definitely verifiability here. The fact would be good to include in Wikipedia, possibly in the Cauchy distribution article. What is questionable is whether Hodgson's contribution is notable. Here is the first page of an earlier (1965) paper on the same topic. Note that people occasionally call this the normal ratio distribution. Cardamon 00:29, 6 September 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.