Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics

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This project aims to enable Wikipedians to cooperate, make suggestions and share ideas on the organization and improvement of the mathematics coverage of Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to join in this endeavor.

Many such suggestions and guidelines have been developed since the project began. A particularly useful collection can be found in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics), which contains a detailed discussion of issues related to writing mathematics articles on Wikipedia.

However, it is important for all of us to remember that these are only suggestions: they should help to give us focus, and inspire our contributions, but no one should feel obliged to follow (or even read) them. This WikiProject is not prescriptive. The suggestions are intended to be helpful for those who are not sure what to write, or how they can contribute, but they should not distract anyone wanting to contribute from our main purpose: to write and improve mathematics articles!

[edit] Project background and scope

This WikiProject began in 2002 to assist the creation, improvement and organization of articles in the area of mathematics. The initial goals of the project were to provide:

• a standard "bare bones" format for mathematical articles
• useful links for article writers
• a location to discuss issues relating to this section of Wikipedia
• standards for mathematical notation using wikified HTML and TeX.

In its broadest terms, mathematics includes its overlaps with physics, computer science, operations research, and other areas. However, there are now separate WikiProjects in many of these areas, and so the focus of WikiProject Mathematics has shifted towards articles which are primarily mathematical (although it still includes many aspects of theoretical physics, for example).

Much progress has been made. The overall organisation of the project is now pretty much in place, and a "house style" for mathematical articles is reasonably well established. The list of mathematics articles now has more than 15000 entries, and this list is automatically updated by a bot using the list of mathematics categories to identify relevant articles. There are also lists of articles by topic which organize articles by subdiscipline and other criteria.

When contributing new articles which are (even only remotely) related to mathematics (including biographies of mathematicians, and so on), please add at least an approximate mathematical category. This enables us to identify, and hence review and add to (or mercilessly savage!) each other's contributions.

The main issues for the project are now probably the following ones.

• Bringing stubs up to a reasonable standard. There are always plenty of pages that are definition-only. We need to add motivation and examples.

• Developing important articles into good expositions. As anyone who teaches the subject knows, the gap between stating some true facts, and really putting over a topic, is quite large. Here we can consider also the need to add history and proper attributions.

• Expanding coverage to bring the subject up-to-date. This is a huge task, so the main requirements are patience and determination. In particular a lot of work is still needed to bring the more advanced material up-to-date, so expert contributions are to be encouraged.

• Keeping track of all relevant articles, by listing, categorising and assessing them. As mentioned above, it is important to add even an approximate category to each mathematical article. There is also an subproject whose aim is to assess the broad field, importance and quality of our articles. Anyone can contribute to this task by adding or updating {{maths rating}} templates on article talk pages.

• Identifying pseudo-mathematics, hoaxing and other unattributable material. Most Wikipedians, naturally enough, don't feel qualified to pronounce on articles purporting to be mathematical, so it is up to us to identify crankery, hoaxes, and material with dubious or unverifiable sources. Anything suspect should be reported on the talk page of this page.

[edit] Things to do

Looking for something to do? The following table lists some of the places on Wikipedia where mathematics related requests, suggestions and tasks have been collected together.

[edit] Some issues to think about

Probably the hardest part of writing a mathematical article (actually, any article) is the difficulty of addressing the level of mathematical knowledge on the part of the reader. For example, when writing about a field, do we assume that the reader already knows group theory? A general approach is to start simple, then move toward more abstract and general statements as the article proceeds. The suggestions below are intended to help us achieve this.

When describing a concept in terms of some other concept (for example, explaining rational numbers in terms of integers), be sure to:

• add a (prominent) link to the relevant article (in this case, integer) — as with other wikipedia articles, avoid duplicate links;
• if it makes sense, add a very quick (and naive) explanation/description (in this case, "positive or negative whole numbers" might work).

If the relevant article has not been written yet, then create a good stub, and add a mathematical category. This will list the article in several places (for instance on the list of mathematics articles and there is a reasonable chance that someone will expand on it.

Some terminology varies from author to author in the literature. It is therefore a good idea to check any pre-existing articles related to a topic to see if there is already an established usage. Proposals for changes in usage are always welcome: the talk page of this page is one forum where issues such as this can be raised.

New contributors may find it helpful to spend a bit of time perusing some of the existing content; this should provide some idea of what type of information is already available, and how much detail is appropriate in a wikipedia mathematics article.

The project Wikipedia:WikiProject General Audience, whose goal is to help make articles more accessible, is also worth consulting.

Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines provides guidance for writing readable and well referenced scientific and mathematical articles.

[edit] Conventions

The following pages attempt to describe certain conventions for articles with mathematical content. Please read, comment on, improve, criticize, and if appropriate, follow these standards.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Conventions (a working list of terminology conventions)
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (theorems)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)
• Wikipedia:Algorithms on Wikipedia (proposed)
• Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines

[edit] Classification

There is no one single, prescribed method for classifying mathematics articles. Both the lists and the categories have grown organically, rather than being imported. See also areas of mathematics.

[edit] List of publications in mathematics

There is an effort to organize a list of important publications in many areas of science. Such a list captures the major achievements in each field and might be a valuable asset for one trying to learn a new field.The List of publications in computer science is the oldest and most mature list and might show the goal of the lists. The rest of the list needs many more contributions. Please help improve the mathematics related lists:

• List of publications in mathematics
• List of publications in statistics
• List of publications in computer science.

[edit] Assessment of mathematics articles

Mathematics article ratings
Priority	Quality
	FA	A	GA	A-BB+	B	Start	Stub	UA	Total
Top	7	9	10	31	107	57	3	0	224
High	3	2	5	28	184	281	67	0	570
Mid	5	2	9	16	288	718	314	2	1354
Low	4	1	1	3	104	603	874	1	1591
UA	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	9	10
Total	19	14	25	78	683	1660	1258	12	3749

Last updated: Tue Jun 10 01:10:02 UTC 2008

Math articles by field and quality
Field	Quality
	FA	A	GA	A-BB+	B	Start	Stub	UA	Total
Algebra	0	1	2	7	76	260	272	0	618
Analysis	3	0	2	12	86	205	119	0	427
Applied mathematics	1	0	0	4	39	63	32	3	142
Basics	1	1	4	5	40	78	18	0	147
Discrete mathematics	0	0	1	6	28	87	66	1	189
Foundations, logic, and set theory	0	1	1	14	86	182	141	0	425
Frequently viewed	13	10	15	41	226	176	17	1	499
General	0	1	3	4	24	50	39	0	121
Geometry	0	3	1	7	114	231	221	1	578
History	1	1	1	5	18	23	5	0	54
Mathematical physics	2	1	3	3	24	30	13	0	76
Mathematicians	9	2	5	7	41	162	134	0	360
Number theory	0	1	2	2	31	104	83	0	223
Probability and statistics	3	0	0	7	68	130	61	0	269
Theorems and conjectures	1	4	0	6	42	95	74	1	223
Topology	0	3	1	1	28	74	57	0	164
Vital articles	3	0	2	9	28	20	0	0	62

Last updated: Tue Jun 10 01:10:02 UTC 2008

The subproject Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0 provides a system to assess mathematics articles for their quality and importance, and to classify them broadly by field. This system was originally developed as part of Wikipedia 1.0, and these assessments will be used to help us to determine which articles will appear in the Wikipedia 1.0 CD.

However, article assessments are useful more generally to track the project's progress, identify weak spots in its coverage, and highlight articles which could become Good Articles or Featured Articles. Articles are assessed by placing (or updating) a {{maths rating}} template on the talk page of the article. Furthermore, the template provides an opportunity to add a brief comment on the article suggesting improvements that could be made.

The table on the right summarizes the current state-of-play. The links in this table point to assessment pages on which articles are listed by field and quality, complete with any comments that editors have made.

Any article can be assessed for its mathematical content, and anyone can rate an article. The only exceptions are the Good Article and Featured Article quality grades. These should only be added to articles which have been through the standard Wikipedia Good Article Nomination and Featured Article Candidacy procedures. Editors are also encouraged to use the A-class assessment process to assign A-class quality to an article.

[edit] Good articles

As of November 26, 2007, the mathematics Good Articles are

Mathematicians:

Ramanujan, Srinivasa — Turing, Alan

Mathematics:

Commutativity — Derivative — E (mathematical constant) — Exponentiation — Hilbert space — Homotopy groups of spheres — Mathematics — Order theory — Ordinal number — Pi — Pseudoforest — Pythagorean theorem — Sylvester's sequence — Znám's problem

Mathematical Physics:

Entropy — Schrödinger equation — Special relativity — String theory

Puzzles: Rubik's Cube

[edit] A-class articles

The A-class assessment process is used to select A-class articles. So far the following have been promoted by this process:

• Peano axioms (10 April 2007)
• Knot theory (26 April 2007)
• Poincaré conjecture (18 May 2007)
• Area of a disk (5 June 2007)

The following 12 articles have also been identified as A-class:

Albert Einstein — Algorithm — Charles Peirce — Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace — Four color theorem — General relativity — Golden ratio — Manifold — Mathematics — Number — Pythagorean theorem — Riemann hypothesis.

[edit] Featured articles

As of April 24, 2008, there are 16 mathematics articles which are featured articles:

There are also 5 featured mathematical images: Image:Buddhabrot-deep.jpg, Image:Lorenz attractor yb.svg, Image:Pi-unrolled-720.gif, Image:Pi-unrolled.gif, and Image:Tetrahedral group 2.svg; and one featured list: List of International Mathematical Olympiads.

[edit] Former featured articles

As of April 24, 2008, there are at least 17 mathematics articles which are former featured articles:

Former featured articles
Article	Featured1	De-featured1
Ordinal	4 April 2002	19 January 2004
Statistics	4 April 2002	19 January 2004
Pythagorean theorem	4 April 2002	Discussion 21 March 2004
Illegal prime	28 August 2003	Discussion 13 July 2004
Computational complexity theory	4 April 2002	Discussion 23 August 2004
Vacuous truth	Discussion 6 January 2004	Discussion 20 September 2004
Triangle	Discussion May 10, 2004	Discussion 3 March 2005
Fractal	Discussion 12 July 2004	Discussion 15 September 2005
Algorithm	24 July 2002	Discussion 28 May 2006
Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace	16 October 2005	Discussion 19 September 2006
Ackermann function	18 December 2003	Discussion 21 October 2006
Regular polytope	18 November 2004	Discussion 23 January 2007
Margin of error	12 October 2004	Discussion 3 March 2007
Galileo Galilei	4 November 2003	Discussion 12 September 2007
Lists of mathematics topics	Discussion 27 October 2005	Discussion 31 December 2007
Carl Friedrich Gauss	Discussion 10 July 2005	Discussion 4 January 2008
Game theory	Discussion 4 December 2005	Discussion 18 March 2008
Prisoner's dilemma	19 January 2004	Discussion 16 April 2008

¹The discussion links (where they exist) point to the featured article candidate discussion or the featured article removal candidate discussion — prior to June, 2003, there was no formal FA nomination process, and there was no formal FA removal process, prior to March, 2004.

Emboldened article titles indicate articles that have been featured on the main page. The symbol: , indicates an article that has an audio recording of the article text (see the article for a link to its recording).

[edit] Featured Article candidates

Emmy Noether is currently a mathematics Featured article candidate.