User talk:Thony C.

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Welcome! If you want to reach me by email, you can do so by returning to my user page or talk page and clicking "email this user"; also, my direct email is my usernmame (at) gmail (dot) com. For Wikipedia-related exchanges that don't need to be private, it's often easiest just to exchange talk page messages like these. Here's WikiProject History of Science that I mentioned. Learning wiki markup has a slight learning curve, but once you get the hang of it it's pretty straightforward. I hope you decide to stick around; it can sometimes be frustrating dealing with trollish editors, but for the most part you'll find many more like-minded people (i.e., that care about getting things as right as possible) than not. When you can bring solid sources and good writing to the articles, the myths you dispel here tend to stay dispelled (at least on an article-by-article basis).--ragesoss 23:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

PS: Here's some useful welcome boilerplate...

Welcome!

Hello, Thony C., 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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Contents

[edit] History of mathematics article

Hi Thony,

Welcome to Wikipedia. I saw your mentioned your interest in history and philosophy of science and mathematical sciences 1400 to 1700 at the Wikiproject page. I'm just starting to do some reorganization of the History of Mathematics article, and thought you might want to pitch in. --SteveMcCluskey 17:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An attempt at a reply!

Hi Steve,

Thank you for your words of welcome kind sir, I would be pleased to join your efforts on the History of Mathematics article and will do as soon as possible. I had thought to wait a little longer before trying my hand at anything here as I came to computers late in life and have no experience of things like HTML and so I'm a bit like somebody learning to ride a bike but with my hands tied together and wearing a blindfold! I wanted to practice a bit in private before going public but as they say learning by doing is the best method and so I will just plunge in.

Curiously, I recently read your book "Astronomies and Cultures" and was very impressed, as well as learning a lot. I read it at the same time as reading Robert Hanah's "Greek and Roman Calendars" and the two books fit together very well. One of my major interests is what I call the "Ptolemaic Renaissance" in the 15th and 16th centuries and your book provides very, very useful contextual background for my work.Thony C. 10:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Thony,
Thanks for the kind comments and for your additions on history of mathematics. Its good to have someone with background in history of science looking at that article.
One caution, that article tends to focus strongly on pure mathematics (it got me involved in some unproductive historiographical debates) and there are objections to including material about the mathematical sciences (astronomy, optics, mathematical physics, etc.) Your edits will be very welcome and, as one of the rules of Wikipedia says, "Be bold!" --SteveMcCluskey 12:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


Hi Steve, Having read your exchanges with Rick before making my small additions I am well aware of the problems that you have been having on the problems of historiography. I think we will have to take a bite of the 'sauer Apfel' as the Germans say and do battle on this one. If ones sticks to a presentist approach as favoured by Rick then one can't write a history of mathematics at all. Pure mathematics as we now know it is really a product of the 19th C. as is indeed applied mathematics, previous to that all post mediaeval mathematics was practical mathematics as opposed to theoretical mathematics out of which theoretical areas developed over longer periods of time; trigonometry during the 15th and 16th centuries, calculus during the 17th century and so forth. Even the 18th century was largely dominated by practical mathematics Euler, the Bernoullis etc did most of their work in mechanics etc. The 15th and 16th centuries were a period of intense mathematical activity that built the fundament on which the so called scientific revolution took place but it is all practical mathematics and mostly applied astronomy: astrology, cartography, chronometry, navigation, surveying...If one ignores this then one is left saying that there was no mathematics during these two hundred years which is just plain ridiculous. I will rewrite the segment on the Renaissance from this standpoint and see what happens!

Thony,
I understand your frustration with scientists who want to write history of science in the "heroic mode." One sees it all the time when senior scientists turn to write the history of their discipline; it takes time for them to learn how to do history. I remember Dave Lindberg telling me that it generally took three semesters for grad students coming from one of the sciences into the history of science to begin to think like historians.
We just need persistent effort to teach by the example of writing good history, and editing whatever isn't up to standards. --SteveMcCluskey 19:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Boethius and the Quadrivium

I've replied to your comment on my talk page. --SteveMcCluskey 01:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] naming conventions

Thony, the naming conventions with capitals are mostly for the purpose of easier linking, since a term will generally appear in other articles not as an article title but just as a regular phrase. Only the first letter is case insensitive, so the article naming convention facilitates links in prose to other topics. See Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Lowercase_second_and_subsequent_words_in_titles for a half-assed rationale. In a few cases, there are two different articles that differ only by capitalization, such as Address Book and address book.--ragesoss 13:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing hints

Hi

I noticed you were revising History of mathematics in your sandbox. That's definitely the way to go. However, it's best to start by copying the text from the article's edit box, rather than from the text as displayed. That way you won't lose the formatting and, more importantly, the footnotes. When you copy the text from the article's edit box, just close the edit box without saving the page.

It's also a good idea to give a notice on the article's talk page that you're doing this, so others can have a chance to chime in rather than be faced with a fait accompli when the new text is dropped in. Hang in there. --SteveMcCluskey 14:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


Hi Steve

I just logged on to talk to you and found your message. That which I have in my sand box is a rough first draught. I was intending to do as you suggest as soon as I thought that I had something that was readable, if you get my drift.When I am happy with what I have written I will invite you and Sage to read and criticise it and if it passes muster then invite others to my sand box to offer suggestion, scream abuse, fall over laughing or what ever... Thanks for your advice on copying text, I will correct it next time I work in my sand box. Thony C. 16:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Arno Borst

Steve

In case you haven't already heard, I wanted to inform you that Arno Borst died on Thursday aged 81. In my opinion an excellent historian who has written several clasics. Thought the news might interest you Thony C. 16:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Thony
Sorry to hear the sad news; we met at a conference long ago and I have some of his books on my shelves. SteveMcCluskey 18:51, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue II - May 2007

The May 2007 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter has been published. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse--ragesoss 06:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sandbox edit

Hi Thony,

I fixed the box on the paragraph you mentioned. The problem happens if a paragraph starts with a space.

BTW, do you want those bolded headers to be treated as subsections. It's easy to do by framing the header with a number of equal signs: ===Subsection===

====sub-subsection====

That produces:

[edit] Subsection

[edit] sub-subsection

Happy editing, SteveMcCluskey 15:23, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


Thank you kind sir.Thony C. 20:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue III - September 2007

The September 2007 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter has been published. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse--ragesoss 01:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue IV - May 2008

A new May 2008 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter is hot off the virtual presses. Please feel free to make corrections or add news about any project-related content you've been working on. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse--ragesoss (talk) 23:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)