Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Square root of 5

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 Speedy Keep per WP:SNOW. Stephan Schulz 16:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Square root of 5

Square root of 5 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

No evidence of notability has been found Dicklyon 22:14, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

A useful rebuttal of my claim that "No evidence of notability has been found" would be to point out one or more reliable secondary sources about the square root of 5. Then of course I would change my position to keep instead of delete. But barring such citations, the article should be deleted, according to WP:NOTE. Dicklyon 23:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Actually, this number is far more notable than, say, 71 (number), 93 (number), or most numbers for which we have an article. There are books and theses dedicated to this number. As an alternative, I'd suggest redirect to Golden ratio. Owen× ☎ 22:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The WP:OTHERSTUFF argument carries no weight. But if you can find those books and articles, and cite them, the reason for this AfD will go away and we'll be done. Dicklyon 22:38, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. A well written sourced article. The notability comes from its link with the golden ration. Deleting this would be removing material that should be in an encyclopedia. --Bduke 22:56, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

But where is the evidence of Wikipedia:notability, that is, notability as wikipedia defines it? "This concept is distinct from 'fame', 'importance', or 'popularity'." Dicklyon 23:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Not nessacary. Perhaps might be suitable for Wikibooks.. Rackabello 22:57, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Same opinion as Bduke. pom 00:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep per OwenX and Bduke. I consider this a very weak nomination. Newyorkbrad 00:19, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Your opinions are noted, but they don't get us closer to evidence of notability. Are you suggesting that an AfD based on lack of evidence of notability is inherently weak? Or something else? Dicklyon 00:21, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Evidence of notability is all over the article, IMHO. Newyorkbrad 00:24, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Which cited references do you consider to be in that category? You do realize, I presume, that the term "evidence of notability" means citations to reliable secondary sources. Dicklyon 00:28, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Um, yes, I know what evidence of notability means as used on Wikipedia, and if your point is that perhaps the article could use some additional references, you are probably right. But we are talking about a number, not an individual or an organization, and the notability of a number is an inherent fact rather than a human construct. Newyorkbrad 00:31, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm talking about ANY references to secondary sources about the square root of 5; there are NONE now (please mention a ref number, one of 1 through 6, if you see one that is not self-published and is about the square root of 5). And I must have missed that section of WP:NOTE about numbers not needing evidence like everything else. Dicklyon 00:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I still viscerally find this nomination absurd. Obviously there are references out there; based on your userpage, you probably have more subject-matter knowledge with which to track them down than I do. If I hadn't commented already I probably would speedy-close this as an obvious keep. Newyorkbrad 00:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I hear you. The gut as Steven Colbert puts it, often overrides logic, as it should. But maybe not so within wikipedia rules. Anyway, find at least one source if you want to support the idea that it's notable. Dicklyon 01:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

If no one else does, then I suppose I will. But in the meantime I'm close to closing this debate as a WP:POINT violation. Newyorkbrad 01:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, well referenced and well written article. Just because some people do not find a subject interesting is not reason to delete the article. meshach 01:17, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

It's interesting enough; it just lacks evidence of notability. Dicklyon 01:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep because notability comes from its connections with the golden ratio and its occurrence in Diophantine approximations and in various curious identities found by Ramanujan and others. Michael Hardy 02:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep - The article has references. It is a good read for anyone interested in the golden ratio since its irrationality lies on the square root of five. I feel that deleting it per lack of notability would be stretching WP:NOTE. Furthermore, there is a planet math page on this topic. Brusegadi 02:13, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Sources provided establish notability for the number as a mathematical concept above and beyond other numbers, satisfying the Wikipedia:Notability standard. Alansohn 02:14, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Notable enough for me. Paul August ☎ 02:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Inherently notable. --Malcolmxl5 03:06, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. By the same argument that the article "must" be deleted barring citations of one or more reliable secondary sources about the square root of 5, the article 5 (number) "must" be deleted. And also the article 5 about the year 5 CE. These numbers and the year are referenced in many reliable sources, but that does not mean the sources are "about" the number or year. No sources address the subject of the year 5 directly in detail. If the notion of notability requires that sources are written "about" it, then apparently that is not a notion that can be applied in a foolproof way, without using some common sense, to determine whether something is an encyclopedic topic.  --Lambiam 03:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: Why are we voting to delete this when there are hundreds of less worthy number articles like 93 (number) and 211? Frankly I wouldn't mind deleting every single such number article, and having done so I wouldn't mind if someone proposed to delete this as well, but while we still have all those, an extensive article like this seems well within precedent to keep. CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:21, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully we're not voting, but rather discussing the issues related to this concept. FrozenPurpleCube 05:12, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep per discussion above. Inherently notable, per malcomx15, and relevant to all sorts of things -- math education, number theory, the Golden mean, architecture and engineering. Now it is snowing, folks. Bearian 03:24, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep -- inherently notable. Part of me wants to claim bad faith nomination as user clearly has a scientific background, but I'm going to WP:AGF and chalk it up to being outside his field. JPG-GR 03:39, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not "outside my field". I just think that numbers should meet criteria like other subjects; that means someone has to find and cite at least a couple of reliable secondary sources about the subject; nobody has done that, and I can't find such sources myself; so the AfD is an attempt to force the "inherently notable" opiners to put up or shut up. I would be perfectly happy to a keep outcome, if such sources can be found and cited. So far, none of what's cited is an independent reliable source about the subject of the article. Dicklyon 05:28, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep per OwenX and Bduke. As newyorkbrad said: I consider this a very weak nomination. Mathmo ^Talk 04:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. The notability guidelines say "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Clearly, the square root of 5 satisfies this criterion. -- Dominus 04:07, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Clearly? Why not point out a few that we can cite then, so we can end this? Dicklyon 05:30, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. I've added a reference for the Ramanujan identities to hopefully satisfy User:Dicklyon. It features sqrt(5) pretty prominently. Most of the material of this article links to other pages, such as Fibonacci numbers or golden ratio. We don't have to give references for the notability of F.n. or g.r. here, but do so at the appropriate pages. Jakob.scholbach 06:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we had any shortage of places where the square root of 5 appears in formulae, even prominently. But do those refs discuss the square root of 5? Or is it used just as any other number would be that happened to appear in a formula? You know, I have a book on pi, and a book on e, and a book the square root of -1, and a book on the golden ratio, and a book on zero, and a book on infinity, and classic copy of Los Alamos Science magazine on the Feigenbaum constants; if there's a book or article on the square root of five that I've missed, I'd like to get a copy for my collection. Dicklyon 06:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds a bit like Category:Japanese voice actors, I think. They too appear in formulae, even prominently. But there's much less to say about just about any of them (any of them at all?) than there is about the square root of five, which is elegant and alluring to boot. -- Hoary 14:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. And delete Square root of 4 as well, as it is just plain silliness. It is a waste of server space to create a page for every irrational number, and two for every rational number (2, square root of 4). 199.125.109.35 06:11, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Sqrt(4) is strange indeed. But, as you may not have noticed, there is not (yet...) an article about every irrational number, for example pi - e is awaiting its birth. Otherwise we would need Hilbert's server and also an infinite monkey to write all the stuff. Jakob.scholbach 06:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

What's up with these opinions of strangeness and silliness? Whatever happened to discussing relationships to wikipedia policy? Oh, I see what you mean; the infinite number of monkeys does make that a very low probability. Dicklyon 06:25, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, this is a notable number. JIP | Talk 07:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, per Michael Hardy and because I like it. But a special Fighting Spirit Award for the tenacious Dicklyon. -- Hoary 07:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll take it; nobody's ever given me an award on wikipedia before, and this sounds like a good one; I should also get a "great parody" award for the square root of 4, don't you think? Especially the statistics section; it took some work to find two refs stating that the square root of four was used that way, to effectively mock the guy who claimed the same thing for the square root of five with two refs (since removed by me from that article, since it was absurd). At least I did flush out at least one actual ref (the Hurwitz's theorem one) where the square root of five is the unique nontrivial constant that makes this result work. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and presume that the 1956 ref actually does talk about the square root of five, making it at least marginally notable (in the wikipedia sense), as opposed to just a number that shows up in a lot of formulae. Dicklyon 07:59, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Weak delete - While I personally can't understand what makes the square root of 5 a special number, there may be sources backing up the notability of the number. However, until a good deal of reliable sources are found to clear up any notability problems, the article should be deleted. It can always be recreated later. --clpo13_(talk) 08:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep per WP:SENSE. Unfortunately WP:NOTE has to make generalizations about millions of articles. No one is going to write a book about the square root of 5, but the subject is so clearly notable, useful, and encyclopedic that I'm highly inclined to make use of WP:IGNORE here. — xDanielx^Talk 11:39, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

  Actually, books have been written about this number, although since most were published in the 19th century or earlier, you won't find them on Amazon.com or at your local library. Owen× ☎ 13:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

  Now you've got me interested. Nineteenth-century books on the square root of 5, who'd a thunk it? Amazon schmamazon; we can look via Copac, for example. Can we have a title or two? (Meanwhile, thanks again to Dicklyon for kicking off this stimulating and illuminating AfD.) -- Hoary 14:10, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

  Unless you're a subject matter expert already familiar with the paper, life is too short to scan through the thousands of publications by Euler, de Moivre and Binet, looking for something that might very well be titled "On the Ratio of the Diagonal of the Double Rectangle", "Properties of the 1:2 Right Triangle" or such. Owen× ☎ 15:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

  OK, convinced me. If evidence of notability is hard to find, we simply forego it. I'll keep that in mind. Dicklyon 15:24, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

  Thank you for the sarcasm. I'm not sure what you're hoping to achieve here, but the fate of this AfD is pretty much determined at this point. Your Square root of 4 article was funny, so we'll ignore the fact that it was a disruption of Wikipedia to make a point; what that point was--I'm not sure. If you have nothing better to do, go and expand one of the hundreds of articles in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics. Owen× ☎ 15:37, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The point was that it's actually not so hard to find articles specifically on the square root of 4, yet for some reason we're willing to call the square root of 5 notable even though we can't find any independent secondary sources about it. Sort of like the AfD on Maria Hart; if enough people think the subject is interesting or has appeared in important places, then we disregard WP:NOTE. Dicklyon 16:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• It has to be noticed, for instance, that Poncelet, in the Cours de Mécanique appliquée aux machines studied specifically certain forms of radicals, like and . This study, related to numerical approximation of radicals, has been continued by others. See for example Léauté, H. Note sur le calcul approché par la méthode de Poncelet des radicaux de la forme . Bulletin de la Société Mathématique de France, 8 (1880), pp. 106-109. It appears that is of both forms: . pom 16:01, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't that just put the square root of 5 into yet one more infinite set? What's your point? Dicklyon 16:47, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, those are just the square roots of (sequence A097268 in OEIS), which I assume is infinite. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

From a mathematical point of view, you will find no book on a particular constant (books on pi, e, i, 0 et 1 are more of a phylosophical or nature). If you prefer metaphysical raisons for the notability of the square root of 5, you may refer to Robert Lawlor, Sacred Geometry, Thames & Hudson, 1982, p. 37, 61, who explains the importance of the square root of 5 in the Ancient Egypt. See also John Anthony West, Serpent in the Sky, Quest Books, 1993, p. 42. You should not ask for a whole publication dedicated to a single number. By the way, I know no publication only concerned with the square root or with the subtraction, what does not mean that these operations are not notable ones. pom 17:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree; you can't prove non-notability by what you don't know about. And I'm not insisting on whole books on the subject; that was just a counter to something someone said above. Articles on the subject would be fine. Dicklyon 17:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a summary of that content, from those sources two would be a nice addition to the article. Paul August ☎ 17:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep and speedy close - WP:NOTE in the context of AfD is not about actual citations in a Wikipedia article. It is about the likelihood that WP:RS material is available from which to develop the Wikipedia article. Of course the Square root of 5 is going to be addressed in multiple math books. That alone is enough to meet WP:NOTE even if the article itself was unreferenced. There are practicable application for the Square root of 5 noted in WP:RS's and that material is available for the article as well. I too consider this a very weak nomination, which would justify an early close. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 17:43, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I see. Maybe we need to amend WP:NOTE#Notability_requires_objective_evidence to make this more clear "in the context of AfD". Dicklyon 17:48, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOTE#Notability_requires_objective_evidence addresses a need to use objective evidence in determining notability (e.g., reliable sources) rather than using subjective evidence (e.g., does/does not seem famous/important to me). Notability requires the existence of objective evidence. It does not require the actual use of objective evidence in the article as far as AfD is concerned. By the number of keep reasons in this AfD, most people understand this so there is no reason to amend WP:NOTE. There is enough reliable source coverage to write a neutral and unbiased compilation of previously written, verifiable facts about the square root of 5. That the reliable source coverage has not been provided in the article to your satisfaction is not a basis for listing the article for deletion; it is a basis for improving the article. If you really like to know more about what the San Jose Mercury News article said about the square root of 5 in music[1], I did provide a reference to the San Jose Mercury News article which you can find at most major libraries. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 02:15, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I see; but I don't agree. In many cases, there are enough reliable sources of facts to write an article, but we don't because the subject is not notable. It's not a good idea to mix the notability requirements with the verifiability requirements. Both are independently important. In fact, much of what's in the article is suitably sourced by now. But the sources are not about the subject. WP:NOTE says: "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than trivial but less than exclusive. My beef is that none of the sources provide significant coverage of the square root of 5; it's just a number that happens to come up in what they're covering. I'm not claiming that such sources CAN'T be found, but that we shouldn't have the article unless they are. That's the way I read notability. Have I got it wrong? Dicklyon 02:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Well-referenced, important and notable number. --- RockMFR 17:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. It seems that most (actually any page on a number I randomly chose, except sqrt(2)) contain definitely less of encyclopedic material in the sense User:Dicklyon is perhaps looking for than this article. For example 720 (number), 193 (number), or Square root of 3 or 36 (number) contain only trivial/non-notable facts and list contexts in which the number in question occurs. In view of this, if this discussion comes to the result of delete, it would necessarily entail the deletion of lots of number-related articles in the List of numbers. Jakob.scholbach 18:04, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me; but since the result will be keep, we won't get to go there. But when you notice such articles, you ought to at least tag them with unreferenced and notability tags; I went ahead and did the ones you found. Dicklyon 18:14, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Does putting notability tags on these articles serve any useful purpose? Newyorkbrad 18:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Good question. It usually doesn't seem to, but it's supposed to alert editors to find and add citations to independent reliable secondary sources, with the implication that the article may be deleted if they don't. Dicklyon 18:56, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

No, putting those notability tags there was just disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. One might as well start putting those tags on practically every Wikipedia article on numbers, starting with the articles on 1 (number) and 2 (number) which do not cite a single reference to "stablish their notability". Uaxuctum 19:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. Please don't assign motives to me; assume good faith. Those articles had zero citations, which means they lack both sources and evidence of notability. Jakob.scholbach was serious, I presume, in noting that they are considerably less notable than the square root of 5, which I also tagged in good faith. I would appreciate it if you would revert your removals of the tags, which I placed in good faith. Oh, and I had already put the unreferenced tags on 1 and 2; I held off putting notability tags there, even though the evidence is missing, because I did not want to give the impression that I thought those numbers were not notable within wikipedia guidelines; the evidence should still be found and added, of course. And please don't invoke the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument with me. Dicklyon 20:05, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to including the "unreferenced" tag if it is meant to promote the addition of sources and additional material to improve those articles. But to start questioning the notability of such numbers as 36 and Theodorus's constant is ludicrous. Among a plethora of other things, 36 is the smallest square triangular number greater than 1, and if Theodorus's constant is not notable, then I wonder how it even got a proper a name. Besides, the WikiProject:Numbers endorses having articles for all integers from -1 to 200, which includes 193. For its part, 720 is notable for several things mentioned in the article, including its being (like 36) one of the not-so-may highly composites (which are the "opposite" of primes and much rarer than them). Uaxuctum 20:24, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

We'll have to ask Jakob.scholbach if he meant to be serious, or ludicrous, when he mentioned that those articles have nothing but trivia, and no reason to think the numbers in question are "notable" per wikipedia guidelines. I took him seriously; perhaps I was duped. I hadn't notice the root 3 is also named Theodorus's constant, which I would agree almost certainly means it is notable; can you find us a ref about that and cite it? Dicklyon 22:26, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, or merge. I have no problem with the number, but I think it is short of the threshold for having an article (independent of golden ratio). Charles Matthews 18:48, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Hurwitz's theorem and Ramanujan's identities seem independent of the golden ratio idea. Michael Hardy 01:08, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Appears to be accurate and informative.Eregli bob 19:31, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, notable number. All information is referenced. --musicpvm 23:11, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, good info. - grubber 05:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I don't know whether the version I'm looking at is radically different to the one nominated (there seems to have been much activity recently), but it's currently supremely well sourced, thus asserting notability. --Mark H Wilkinson ^{(t, c)} 05:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it has been improved a lot. It's still not clear that any of the refs for the various uses and trivia are actually suitable evidence of notability, and it doesn't meet the notability guidelines for numbers, but it's enough better that we can probably tolerate it now. Dicklyon 06:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, there's plenty of good information here and the contexts the number appears in (eg golden rectangle) indicate plenty of "notability" to me. Bryan Derksen 15:48, 13 August 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.