User talk:Lindorm

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Hello, Lindorm, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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[edit] Mathematical notation

This and many other articles use mathematical notation but neither links to the article on mathematical notation, nor does that article explain the notation used on Wikipedia. I suggest our mathematical friends consider this challenge. --Lindorm 02:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no special mathematical notation used on Wikipedia that is not also used elsewhere; it's just standard notation. I think this comment is silly. It's like saying "This and many other articles use the English language but they do not link to the article titled English language." Or "This and many other articles use graphics but there is no link to the article titled graphics." Michael Hardy 17:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Your comparison is invalid since the wikipedia is written in the English language, not in mathematical language. Mathematical notation is an artificial language, like C or Fortran, and in order for the encyclopeida to be complete and self-contained it has to be explained. Just like wikipedia explains everything else. As it stands, it explains one unknown in terms of another unknown (in relation to natural language). It's not wrong, it's just incomplete. I'm just calling for people who can to rise to the challenge. --Lindorm 14:20, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think mathematical notation used in Wikipedia that is not pretty universally understood is explained in the articles in which it is used. Can you give any counterexamples? Maybe you can find one or two unsatisfactory articles in which that happens, that need to be fixed. But it would not help to link to mathematical notation, since that would not be a good place to find obscure or non-standard usages. Michael Hardy 18:03, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not the obscure that is the "problem", it is the frequently used. There are many ways to write the same things in mathematics, and it seems to vary which is preferred. If our standard is that things that are pretty universally understood should be excluded, then most of the entries could be thrown out... The purpose and value of an encyclopedia is of course to be comprehensive and not assume anything. (Unfortunately I can't remember what triggered me to write this in the first place, I can't see which article it belongs to.)--Lindorm 22:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Your comment to which I was responding was in canonical correlation. Michael Hardy 23:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)