Talk:Skewes' number

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The results from google are confusing, can't guarantee the accuracy of this article. كسيپ Cyp 13:32 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I believe the treatment in mathworld, which this article follows, is wrong. I edited the article to reflect my current understanding. AxelBoldt 14:06, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)

So, what's the best known lower bound for Skewes' number? this seems a rather interesting mathematical constant.

How is it that if

MIT Trekkie 07:35, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

With really large numbers, the concept of approximately equal is much broader, since such numbers are difficult to even write down with precision. For example, . A small uprounding in the last exponent causes an enormous increase in the power tower, but they are so large numbers that nobody can notice. However, I'll change the text to a slightly more accurate value.--Army1987 15:46, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Is Skewes' first name Samuel or Stanley? The :de wiki says Stanley, but I always thought it was Samuel. Both have references on Google.

[edit] Demichel result

It seems to me that the Demichel result should not be included here, as it appears not to have been properly reviewed and published (i.e., it violates WP:OR). Can anyone explain why it should stay? I notice that MathWorld includes it, but I don't think that's a good reason for it to be here. Doctormatt 00:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Good point. (I'm going to be away from the Wiki for a bit, so I don't have time to look at it in detail.) It doesn't seem to have been published, and it states it's probable that it's the correct answer, without giving an estimate of the probabilities in question. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

MathSciNet makes no mention of anything published by Demichel. Doctormatt 01:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If WAREL had removed Demichel, as well as adding his 2006 result, he wouldn't have been blocked. I don't know why he doesn't support his edits when he has support, but.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

OOPS, it looks as if WAREL's result is from arXiv, which is not much better. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean the Chao/Plymen result? Yes, that is unpublished and I think we should remove it, too. Doctormatt 01:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm at WP:3RR for a few more hours. Someone else will have to revert. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 07:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Category Misplacement

I believe that the placement of this article into Category:Integers is perhaps mathematically incorrect. The article gives reference to the "historical" Skewes' number (i.e. the 1933 upper bound proven assuming the RH), which cannot be an integer (or rational number, for that matter) which is implied by the fact that e is irrational. The article also speaks of a Skewes' number (in some sense) in which I believe there is very little reason to believe that the "true" Skewes' number given by the least upper bound for a violation of the defining inequality is an integer. It seems to me that it would be very odd and unnatural and perhaps even disconcerting if the least upper bound (Skewes' number) was given by an integer exactly. For, while the prime counting function takes on only integer values in its range, the logarithmic integral function is continuous (even if defined around its point of discontinuity by the Cauchy principal value of the defining integral), and so moves through a range of values continuously except at prime arguments. This would seem to indicate that the chances of Skewes' number being an integer are pretty much nil. If this seems to be too picky, feel free to ignore me, but it seems to me that placing the article in the integers category would likely be mathematically incorrect. 75.204.164.105 10:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

You are right. I removed the Integers categorization. Owen× ☎ 12:07, 3 October 2007 (UTC)