Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating/Addition

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

[edit] Addition

Addition (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) review
Nominated by: Salix alba (talk) 08:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Result: not promoted. Seems to be getting close, but still too weak on education and history. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 00:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• Ooh, first crack at a new process!
  Ironically, I wrote most of this article, but I have to oppose any real recognition of quality at this point. Not because of the items at the top of Talk:Addition, which is a bit of a wish list. I oppose because of the "Interpretations" section. I strongly believe that it is important to describe the various interrelated meanings of addition in an educationally and mathematically enlightened manner, and to do so in an understandable way. I also believe that I've done a terrible job in moving toward that goal, and I don't know how to continue! Melchoir 08:43, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

…In fact, most of "Extending a measure" should probably be scrapped and rewritten. I don't even have records of all the sources I was reading back when I wrote that stuff. Maybe we should create a sub-article titled Interpretations of addition or similar, and it could contain all the material on the deeper conceptual issues — believe me, they exist and I have seen them — while the summary in the main article could afford to be a little more naive. Melchoir 09:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes I take your point and there is an under construction tag. I've been reading a bit on Piaget research on how children lean mathematics. Piaget views addition as an operation of classes and also an operation on numbers. It might be worth adding something on educational aspects. Whats the Geary ref mentioned in the todo list? --Salix alba (talk) 09:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Currently most of the educational stuff is reflected in "Performing addition", although not at a deep level. I suppose if Piaget had something to say about addition, it ought to be here somewhere, although he doesn't have the last word. For example, I think I read that Wynn's 1992 experiment was initially taken to be something of a surprise, because Piaget's findings would seem to suggest that if young children can't conserve number, then they have no hope of adding.

Geary… I have no idea! This is why I've since learned to keep better records. Melchoir 10:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Is there another WP article that covers the history of addition (or the history of arithmetic in general)? Even the arithmetic article seems pretty short on history. The section on "Extending a measure" seemed too technical for the intended reader - eyes would glaze at the phrase "natural identification of sets of functions". So I took the initiative to edit it. CMummert · talk 13:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks! There's some historical information scattered throughout the article, but it doesn't tell a coherent story, and I doubt that it could. Questions like "When was addition invented?" don't really make much sense as separate from the history of mathematics, and even some of the present material kind of treads that line. Melchoir 19:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I was away for a little while, but there were no new comments. Melchoir, is your concern about the Interpretations section satisfied? I have two areas of concern:

• The generalizations section needs to include a discussion of addition in linear algebra. I have since fixed this.
• There is little historical information.

I can work on the first of these, but the second could use a more knowledgable editor. CMummert · talk 19:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh! Sure, Interpretations is good enough for a general article like this one.

I suppose linear algebra could be tacked right onto the end of "In algebra", which currently ends with the words "abelian groups". Of course, linear algebra and vector spaces have a lot more going on than addition, but they're certainly worth a mention, maybe even a diagram. Melchoir 19:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It might be worth mentioning the Successor function in the interpretations. Looking at the addition of natural numbers section, its very technical writing, which I would not expect a lay reader to be able to follow.

There is some discussion on my talk page, where a couple of non maths people are looking at the lead, both found it very hard to follow.--Salix alba (talk) 00:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.