Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numbers

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This article is part of WikiProject Numbers, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative and easy-to-use resource about numbers. Suggestions for improving multiple articles on numbers and related subjects should go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numbers.

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Contents

[edit] New version of Template:Number

A stylesheet modification allows to add optional fields to infoboxes when needed. CyberSkull updated Template:Number to make use of this. It's already in use for a few pages, but e.g. 9 (number) needs additional (optional) fields to be added (see Template talk:Number). -- User:Docu

[edit] Max proof

Whats the maximum possible alcoholic proof? 200? Numerao 22:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

One would think 200-proof makes sense for pure alcohol, but simply skimming the alcoholic proof article shows it's a little more complex that. Anton Mravcek 21:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NASCAR numbers

Can someone write a guideline for race car numbers in the number articles? Some of the drivers, like Dale Earnhardt are very well known, but some of these guys I've never heard of and I doubt many non-NASCAR fans know about them. PrimeFan 22:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Apparently the intersection of wiki editors and NASCAR fans is close to the null set. - DavidWBrooks 21:04, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm likely the only mathematician in the bunch (see my user page). Royalbroil 05:35, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dull numbers

I've {{prod}}ded 164 (number) - all the article claims is that it is the lowest number about which nothing interesting can be said. That in itself does not make it interesting - see interesting number paradox. — sjorford (talk) 11:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification.
What is interesting is debatable. The fact that 164 "is the smallest number which is the concatenation of squares in two different ways" (Friedman's special numbers page) makes it a mildly interesting number, and since that's a notch above dull, the interesting number paradox is avoided. PrimeFan 16:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Shanel 20:36, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formating the lists - bulleted or not?

There appears to be uncertainty whether lists of items under a heading - such as each unrelated point under Mathematics or Music - should be led with bullets or not - that is, whether they should look like this:

[edit] Header

Item 1

Item 2

... or should look like this:

[edit] Header

  • Item 1
  • Item 2

Most articles have both, for no obvious reason that I can see. I prefer the latter, and was tidying up 12 (number), starting with the miscellany at the bottom, and got confused about when to stop. I can't find any agreed-upon guidelines; have I missed something? - DavidWBrooks 20:50, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

This needs to be discussed by the project members.
My two cents on the issue: If no obvious relation can be discerned between two points, they should be bulleted. But ideally, we should strive to connect everything, e.g., 111 is a repunit and because of that it is also palindromic, strobogrammatic, dihedral, etc., PrimeFan 23:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
These pages are full of lists that have no connection except the article number. (e.g., from 12 (number): There are twelve months in a year. The Western zodiac has twelve signs, as does the Chinese zodiac. The Chinese use a 12 year cycle for time-reckoning called Earthly Branches.) Is that enough of a connection to have no bullets? I hope not, because a lack of bullets makes it look like a badly-formated paragraph rather than a list, IMHO.
There is no consistency at the moment - e.g., in 11 (number), the unrelated items under music are bulleted, while those under sports are not. - DavidWBrooks 00:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
This project seems to have fizzled - either that, or bullets do not grab the collective conscious, judging from the roaring silence on the issue. So I guess I'll make the changes I think are suitable - e.g., bulleting every item unless it is connected to another item. Hopefully if 12 (number) changes, others will follow suit. - DavidWBrooks 12:52, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to think that it's the second. Like I've said, we need to paragraphize more. Bullets are easy and they're an acceptable step towards paragraphs. PrimeFan 20:26, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NASCAR Numbers Part II

As a representative from WP: NASCAR, I agree that not all numbers of cars need to be put in the Numbers section. I do believe though that famous numbers from NASCAR should be put in. I think a good criteria is if the car won a championship.

Tim meant WP:NASCAR. PrimeFan 00:04, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Dale Earnhardt
  • 24 Jeff Gordon
  • 43 Richard Petty
  • 27 Rusty Wallace
  • 7 Alan Kulwicki
  • 18 Bobby Labonte
  • 20 Tony Stewart

etc., etc., if you that like that policy, you can message me back for the full list. Tim Quievryn

That sounds like a good start. I'd also like to know about the hierarchy of races. For example, in college basketball, winning an NCAA championship means more than winning the GLIAC championship. So, in NASCAR, is winning the Nextel Cup or the Coca-Cola 600 as prestigious as winning the Indy 500? Anton Mravcek 21:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I second. I will contact Tim. PrimeFan 22:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I will personally go through tomorrow and add the numbers (#20, #97, #17, #24, #18, #88, #5, #44, #43, #6, #3, #7, #9, #27, #11, #22 and #72) These are the numbers deemed in the "Modern Era" of NASCAR. Also, the #33 will have a mention of Harry Gant, a man who is held as the "greatest driver never to win a championship." Mark Martin will also go under #6, under the same criterion as Gant. In response to Anton's question, yes there is a heirarchy. In NASCAR, the Daytona 500 is by far the biggest race. The numbers I included in the last are for winners of the NEXTEL Cup Series in the past. NASCAR has an interesting minor league. There are two "minor leagues" that would probably be above your deemed Class AA baseball, but below MLB (the CUP). Obviously, I will not use championship numbers from those series, seeing as they are minor. Obviously, if you want any more info about NASCAR divisional procedure, visit our WikiProject. Thanks for your help. Tim Quievryn aka daNASCAT
You're welcome, and thank you for your help. I've added the guideline to the project page. PrimeFan 20:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
This Revision has been completed. I kept the reference on 90 due to Donlavey's signifance as the longest owner in the sport.
Donlavey only had one win as a car owner, and not many notable drivers. I don't think of Donlavey as a significant team. I have removed the car number from the 90 (number) page. Royalbroil 05:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
IMHO, if you can buy a Donlavey collectible plate (or any such trinket) from Franklin Mint then I think he's notable even if he has no championship wins (though I don't know if this is the case). Anton Mravcek 22:07, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 105263157894736842

I have created a page for the number 105263157894736842. I need help in improving its article. Specifically I wanted to know what type of number this is owing to its properties. Details are there in the article in commented text. Also please suggest any more properties you know/can think of about this number. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 09:36, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

It appears in five sequences of the OEIS. Unfortunately, all those sequences have the keyword "base." Anton Mravcek 21:00, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Hoof38

(Copied from the wrong place to both Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numbers and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)

List of "bad" articles he's created (IMHO) include:

  • (-> means redirect)
  • with my comments after
292,277,026,596 -> 11th millennium and beyond
edited both 10000 and 10,000 to be separate disambiguation pages
  • (I think they're now at least the same disambiguation page)


Category:Thousand
Category:Million
Category:Billion
123456789 (number)
1023456789 (number)
1234567890 (number)
12345678987654321 (number)
987654321 (number)
9876543210 (number)
−2 (number) -> Negative and non-negative numbers
−3 (number) -> Negative and non-negative numbers
−4 (number) -> Negative and non-negative numbers
−5 (number) -> Negative and non-negative numbers
−6 (number) -> Negative and non-negative numbers
−7 (number) -> Negative and non-negative numbers
−8 (number) -> Negative and non-negative numbers
−9 (number) -> Negative and non-negative numbers
−10 (number) -> Negative and non-negative numbers
  • I changed all of the −n (number) to redirect to n (number), but I don't think they should be there at all
Year −1 -> 2 BC
1st decade -> 0s
1st decade AD -> 0s
−0s -> 0s BC
  • (OK, these aren't confusing, anyway)
1st changed from 1 (number) to first
2nd from 2 (number) to second (completely wrong, this time)
10th from 10 (number) to tenth (wrong again)
  • I reverted these.
−1 as a disambig between -1 (number) and 2 BC
−2 as a disambig between −2 (number) and 3 BC
−3 as a disambig between −3 (number) and 4 BC
−4 as a disambig between −4 (number) and 5 BC
−5 as a disambig between −5 (number) and 6 BC
−6 as a disambig between −6 (number) and 7 BC
−7 as a disambig between −7 (number) and 8 BC
−8 as a disambig between −8 (number) and 9 BC
−9 as a disambig between −9 (number) and 10 BC
−10 as a disambig between −10 (number) and 11 BC
  • Why?
2100 changed from a redirect to 21st century to a disambig between 21st century, 22nd century, and 2100 (number)
4000 added reference to 5th millennium and 4000 (number) to disambig
5000 changed from a redirect to 5000 (number) to a disambig with 5th millennium, 6th millennium, and 5000 (number)
6000 etc.
7000 etc.
8000 etc.
9000 etc.
[[12:00] -> hour
[[1:00] -> hour
[[2:00] -> hour
[[3:00] -> hour

etc.

  • I've proposed these for deletion. He's now redirected one of them to clock.

[edit] rfc: numbers in sports wit asterix

Barry Bonds has hit more tan 714 homeruns but its cause he used the steroids. What's the project policy for dealing whit records taht are tainted? Numerao 23:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Ye gods, let's not go there: there's enough debate over which sports numbers (of which there are all-but-an-infinite supply) to use; trying to also judge their validity is WAY beyond the scope of the numbers project. - DavidWBrooks 01:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
David, so far people have only been adding jersey and race car numbers, for which we have a criterion (the number is retired). But it's quite foreseeable that people will eventually want to add homerun records, RBIs, stolen bases, etc. At least as baseball is concerned, I think only homerun records are worth including. Touchdowns for football, goals for soccer, I don't about basketball, I don't watch it.
Numerao, I think that for this project we should only concern ourselves with what the official statistician of the league (or team) says. If he doesn't award an asterisk, that's good enough for us, regardless of how much the public thinks the asterisk is deserved. PrimeFan 20:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation

Compare 4 (disambiguation), Four (disambiguation), 9 (disambiguation), Nine (disambiguation). It's not clear what the main name for a number-disambiguation article should be (although clearly the redirects should be kept). --ais523 11:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

They should generally redirect to 4 (number), except for stuff like "Four, Isère" which is not number related. -- User:Docu
I've been bold and moved Nine (dab) to 9 (dab), and will check other numbers accordingly. Someone ought to stop me/revert me if I'm wrong. --ais523 11:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Just checking, 9 was the only number in the range 1-12 out of line (the others all either had no dab page or the word was a redirect to the number). I know this sort of thing probably doesn't make any difference, but I like consistency. --ais523 11:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New project member QQ

User:QQ has joined the project. Anton Mravcek 19:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 200's growers split off

the stuff on numbers like 291 to 299 is getting copied to 290 from 200. soon the article on 200 will be pruned, but before deleting anything I wuold like to be sure everything got copied over ok. Numerao 23:06, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{On RM}}

I added a requested move (1000000 (number) → million), and created a template (named above) to the Articles for Deletion section. If I've done it wrong, please fix it. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 53: Supposedly the "universal random number"

Some anonymous user keeps putting "universal random number" on fifty-three. He has yet to provide one book, mathematician or physician's paper, or reputable website to support his claim. But I've used up my three reverts, and in any case I'm starting to feel very exhausted about this. Anton Mravcek 20:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How far to go

Wikipedia:Notability (numbers) has heretofore been subordinate to the notability guidelines in the "How far to go?" section of this project page. But no longer. One editor is repeatedly introducing a new set of criteria there, that do not match this project's criteria, without any discussion here. I've several times pointed that editor to this project as being the place to discuss and expand this project's criteria. We don't need two conflicting sets of criteria. Please contribute to the discussion. One possible way to proceed is to move the notability criteria for numbers from this project to Wikipedia:Notability (numbers), and have that be the primary statement of the criteria. Uncle G 16:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

  • They didn't seem contradictory or conflicting to me, but it is better for that page to refer to here. All that page had before was the tired old rant that Wikipedia doesn't have infinite server storage. Someone wondering on the notability of say, 167, would've been left scratching their heads; there was no link to WP:NUM until recently.

    We project members (myself especially) have to admit that we haven't addressed the notability of articles on kinds of numbers (e.g., "Joe Schuck numbers," "translocatable repdigit primes," etc.) nor lists of numbers (e.g., "list of numbers that are permutable primes in even bases but not odd bases.")

    For example, WP:NUM does address whether, for example, the fact that say, 170 is a Joe Schmuck number merits mention in the article on 170. The question of whether Wikipedia should have an article on Joe Schmuck numbers is one I don't care to debate, though I don't know if other project members feel the same about that. PrimeFan 21:59, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

    • It's not a "tired old rant". It's a simple truth. And that page has linked to this project, with the link named "Wikipedia's notability and inclusion criteria for numbers", from its very first version onwards. Uncle G 23:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{On RM}}

I've now added the requested moves (10000000 (number), 100000000 and 1000000000 → ten million', hundred million and billion. — Voortle 00:33, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

What do you think about moving 496 (number) and 1729 (number) back to four hundred ninety-six and one thousand seven hundred twenty-nine respectively? Anton Mravcek 19:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd support moving 496 (number) to four hundred (and) ninety-six, indicating that the "and" is optional. Voortle 10:10, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How far to go (2) One seventh

Hi, the How far to go only lists 1/2, 2/3 and 3/5 for fractions. I would like to propose 1/7 as well due to the interesting repetition of its decimal digits (ie the same six number repeating sequence starting at different points in the sequence for each seventh fraction) and also the One seventh ellipse Gary Shingles 04:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure PrimeFan was thinking of giving that definition some small but appreciable room for expansion when he wrote that fractions that have their own Unicode characters (except composed characters). Please see Unicode's Number Forms Code Chart. It includes some thirds, fifths, sixths and eights, but no sevenths.
Maybe that makes for a slightly tenuous third point of interest, the lack of sevenths on that chart (which I can't open at the moment) Gary Shingles
But perhaps now would be a good time for the project members to have some discussion as to what makes fractions mathematically interesting or uninteresting. Anton Mravcek 15:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Another one is the improper fraction 22/7 commonly used as a substitute for PI (20 years ago at least :-) ... which I've just realised is a seventh also. Must be my lucky number (no do not note that! :-) But that makes three firm points of interest and a tenuous one Gary Shingles
A strict reading of Wikipedia:Notability (numbers) would seem to imply that rational approximations of π are not notable enough to warrant their own articles. However, I think the guidelines of WP:NUM were written more thoughtfully and without reliance on the hackneyed "Wikipedia not infinite" rants. Sorry to be so inconclusive about this. What do the other project members have to say about this? Anton Mravcek 16:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
So Gary, if I understand you correctly, the three interesting things about 1/7 are:
  1. "the interesting repetition of its decimal digits" (something that is true in base 10 but perhaps not other bases)
  2. The "One seventh ellipse"
  3. "the lack of sevenths on that [Unicode] chart"
Have I identified these correctly? PrimeFan 22:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC) P.S. to Anton: I meant to make the guideline for fractions very strict as a concession to the deletionists who wanted the integer guidelines to be much stricter than they are now.
Yes to no.1 and no.2; no.3 is slightly facetious, but no.4 would be that 22/7 (being a seventh) can be used as an approximation to π (perhaps because of no.2?) Gary Shingles 01:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Articles on the numbers 10,000,000,000, 100,000,000,000, 1,000,000,000,000, 10^13, 10^14 and 10^15

What do you all think about having articles at 10000000000 (number), 100000000000 (number), 1000000000000 (number), 10^13 (number), 10^14 (number) and 10^15 (number) about those numbers, similar to the article we have at 1000000000 (number)? Should those articles exist? Voortle 00:55, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't think so. In fact, one could make a case for deleting the articles above million. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:06, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I would make the case for those above 10^10. It gives a place to mention numbers like 1023456789 and 7778742049 that are mildly interesting but not interesting enough to warrant articles. PrimeFan 23:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Divisors

Recently, complete lists of divisors have been added/updated in all articles 1 (number to 100 (number), some by myself (viz. 53, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100 ), some by user:Jol123. Here's a reaction from talk:53 (number):

Seems funny to list divisors for a prime number, but I see that they exist in the table for other primes, so you're correct to return them for consistency's sake. - DavidWBrooks 11:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Now, I agree with this. In some of the articles I touched, I added the line "Divisors" in the table, in some I include 1 and the number itself to an already existing list of divisors, and in some I corrected simple errors in the list. Numbers above 100 need similar attention for consistency; I'll leave that to someone else - perhaps awaiting a concensus on the inclusion of all these divisors has been reached.--Niels Ø 14:03, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I've noticed that a lot of pages don't have the template on their Talk pages...

I could go around to all of them, adding in the template. Unless there's some reason that they shouldn't have the template. Just let me know.

Also, I'm willing to join this project and become and active contributor to it. —Captain538[talk] 20:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean this one, the NumberTalk?
This article is part of WikiProject Numbers, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative and easy-to-use resource about numbers. Suggestions for improving multiple articles on numbers and related subjects should go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numbers.


I'll add it to a couple of pages. You can do the rest if you like, or you can have a bot do it. PrimeFan 22:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 65535

Can someone take a look at 65535 (number)? PrimeFan 22:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I looked at it, added a Docuan table and a very tiny bit about its mathematic properties. I'm not sure this article is called for at all by the project guidelines. Anton Mravcek 17:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 00:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much for letting us know. That's quite a bit for me to chew on for a while. In the meantime, do any of the other members of this project have any questions for B2T2? PrimeFan 22:37, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFC: Notability of number bases

An anonymous user added "number bases" to the "How far to go?" section, so I amended it thus:

  • Number bases: Those that are actually used (or have been used in the past) for practical calculations, such as binary, octal, decimal, hexadecimal and sexagesimal.

I realize that some people might have a problem with this because it doesn't address the notability of base 13. Anton Mravcek 16:04, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

The base 13 article says that the Mayan calendar used base 13. I'm not sure that's right, but if it is then it would certainly cover base 13 on the "practical calculations" rule that you propose. PrimeFan 23:56, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★TWO YEARS OF MESSEDROCKER★ 03:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

[edit] talk:trillion and talk:quadrillion

Vote here as to whether you think trillion and quadrillion should stay or be redirected to names of large numbers. I oppose redirecting them there, as most links to them want the actual number, not the name. User:R. Koot keeps redirected trillion there which seems like vandalism to me, as there was no consensus for such a redirect. Voortle 15:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (number)

Why do all the number articles end in (number)? Obviously, when I say 62, I mean the number 62, not the year 62. Why is it 62 (number), not 62? 62 (number) 12:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:18, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 475 (number)

Does 475 (number) meet the notability criteria for number articles, as you interpret it? CMummert · talk 13:44, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Judging it only from what's written at 400 (number) today, I say it's not notable enough to have its own article, but notable enough to merit mention at 400. PrimeFan 20:15, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RFC: Chris's removal of "ephemeral properties"

Anyone have any opinions on User:Chrisfc's mass removal of properties he considers ephemeral from various number articles (210, 400, 800, etc.)? Anton Mravcek 20:11, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SI standards

Korky Day first posted this to the project page

I think the SI preferred is 1.729 with the period raised halfway up the line of type. I can't find that symbol in Wikipedia's list of symbols, though. I think we should generally be moving toward Metric standands, not creating our own, as is described above. Korky Day 23:57, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
That's not a standard we've created. It comes from mathematical papers. Anton Mravcek 13:54, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unreferenced articles

I happened to notice that quite a few articles handled by this project are currently unreferenced (eg I happened to spot 88, 89, 90 right away when adding a missing category). As always, all these articles should be properly referenced to verify statements about the numbers that aren't immediately clear. Not just complicated mathematical facts, but also statements about the number's use in popular culture, sports and elsewhere should have citations to verify the information is correct.

I would recommend your project take some time to review the number articles and attempt to add appropriate references. I would do it myself if I were in a position to give citations, but I'm not. Besides which, technically it's the responsibility of the people who write the article to also provide citations. Now I'm not suggesting these articles need to be deleted, but individual statements should eventually in the long run either be cited by a source or removed from their article. Just an FYI. Dugwiki 20:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Some of the project members have added some references for the mathematical aspects (David Wells' Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers is a favorite) but we do need to have a concentrated, coordinated effort to get all these articles referenced. CompositeFan 16:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not implying there is a "quick fix". The process of getting proper citations on those articles will probably take quite a while. It just seems that this project is the best one suited to handle it. Dugwiki 17:43, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
That would be me who started adding those (Wells, 1986) citations. I will resume, doing ten a day. These, I think, are a good base, at least for the math part. Whatever is not covered by Wells, we should try to get citations for (except for the basic arithmetic stuff).
Dugwiki, every little bit can help. Can you find a citation for the connection between 42 and the Riemann hypothesis? PrimeFan 18:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, I did find this article from Seed [1] that talks specifically about 42 recently being declared the third moment of the Riemann Zeta function. It also is the main article cited by blogs on the topic that I saw. However, I didn't spot the actual mathematical proof or something about it in a mathematical journal. There probably is one, but I didn't see it when I did a web search. Dugwiki 19:23, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
There's this book:
Room, Adrian. The Guinness Book of Numbers Middlesex: Guinness Publishing Ltd. (1989)
Unfortunately I forgot about it for a long time and now it's overdue, so I've got to take it back to the library. Anton Mravcek 21:06, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] protect 9000?

has anyone thought taht maybe we should protect 9000 (number)? even after we acknowledge the dragon ball z meme, some idiots are still vandalizing the page with the meme. Numerao 23:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Although I'm not on often enough to keep the article intact, there doesn't really seem to be enough vandalism to require protection. Now, Ibagué has had a number of anons "monkeying" with it.... — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 16:24, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I've probably violated the 3-revert rule dealing with that stupid Dragon Ball meme. Anton Mravcek 20:15, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
On 9000 (number)? Not recently, and not unless you forgot to log in. That user has no more than two edits in 24 hours at 9000 (number), as far back as I can see. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't know 3RR only applied to the last 24 hours. Anton Mravcek 20:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
i;ve requested it be protected today. the edit history looks like Arthur Rubin has been reverting the dbz meme almost every day the last month. Numerao 22:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
It's semi-protected now. This means all project members should be able to edit it but not the non-logged in users who don't get tired of that "It's over 9000" catchphrase. Anton Mravcek 21:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject numbers rating

Hey there, I have been going through list of all mathematics related articles and I noticed your banner on quite a few of them. Unfortunately your banner lacks the typical wikiproject banner info, like rating, importance, number category perhaps, and article rating comment. I think this would be a great improvement over the current model. thanks--Cronholm144 22:18, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I tried looking at the WP:MATH banner template and it seemed super-difficult to me. (And I've programmed in C++!) Still, I tried to use it as the basis for the Numbers rating template, and it seems to work just fine (cosmetic glitches aside). I've put it on about a dozen number articles. Anton Mravcek 20:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Nice work!--Cronholm144 20:43, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this. It's something I had been wanting to do but kept putting off. Any tips on fixing the banner's cosmetic glitches? PrimeFan 22:11, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I offered(on Anton's talk page) to find the template's creator, and I think I will do so now. Although anyone skilled at coding should be able to handle the cosmetics, ask around--Cronholm144 07:34, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] million

An editor has been removing the selected 7-digit numbers from the article. I've been reverting, but I'd like some support. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:11, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 5280 (number) on AfD

The article 5280 (number) has been nominated for deletion, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/5280 (number). Comments welcome.  --LambiamTalk 07:12, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Number patterns

Taking the last digits of the multiplication table combining them with the digits that sum up to 10 give a direct and an opposite direction. For example given a number 10 and adding nine to it,it gives 19,28,37,46,55,64,73,82,91, and if it was multiples of nine the answer would be 18,27,36,45,54,63,72,81,90. On one case it adds up to ten and on the other it adds up to nine. To see such proof you must divide 1 by 81 and multiply the answer beginning with one to 9 and see the pattern that takes place. A sequence for example reveals such description by dividing 1 by 999991 to 1 divided by 999999. Cyclic or permutable numbers are another examples.

One divided by 81=0.012345679..... a cyclic number with 10,19,28,37,46,55,64,73,1 as reamainders

12345679*1= 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9
12345679*2= 2 4 6 9 1 3 5 8
12345679*3= 3 7 0 3 7 0 3 7
12345679*4= 4 9 3 8 2 7 1 6
12345679*5= 6 1 7 2 8 3 9 5
12345679*6= 7 4 0 7 4 0 7 4
12345679*7= 8 6 4 1 9 7 5 3
12345679*8= 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
12345679*9= 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

example of a cyclic number.

1/17=0.058823529411764705882352941176470....
16 repeated remainders:10,15,14,4,6,9,5,16,7,2,3,13,11,8,12,1
Difference from 16 to 7 of the remainders always nine on a cyclic # except 1/7.
Adding the first eight remainders to the second half, always equals 17.
Repeated quotient:0588235294117647. If from 0 to 5 of the quotient is positive
then from 9 to 4 is negative 5.
Multiplying each remainder by the quotient gives a cyclic number.
The sum of the quotient:72
The sum of the remainders:136
136/9=8-----72/9=8
0588235294117647*136=79999999999999992
1/17*136=8

Only works when the quotient has a length of an even number.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Twentythreethousand (talk • contribs) 22:47, May 23, 2007 (UTC)

And this is important why? We already have an article on cyclic number; you might consider adding your comments there if relevant. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:45, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Table of prime factors and Table of divisors at AfD

Deletion debates: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Table of prime factors and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Table of divisors. PrimeHunter 11:36, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. PrimeFan 21:22, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Look at your usernames: "PrimeHunter" and "PrimeFan" :-) —METS501 (talk) 18:29, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Standardization

There are a great number of articles about integers, and many are unstandardized. I'll go around and fix them, but I need to make sure of a couple of things:

  • We use (for example) "one hundred [and] six" in the lead, not "one hundred and six" or "one hundred six", but the usage in the article is dependent on the original author (i.e. don't change it)
  • The article starts with the number and then it follows by the number written out, (e.g. "46 (forty-six) is the natural number..."), and can use either throughout the article.

—METS501 (talk) 18:28, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about who the original author is. If all of us project members are unanimous on these details, you can be bold and go ahead and make these changes (making sure your edit summaries say something like "Adjusted style per WP:NUM").
However, don't go at it alone. Once we're agreed on the details, you could, for example, take the 100s, I take the 200s, Anton takes the 300s, or whatever we want to split it so that one person isn't burdened with one Promethean task. PrimeFan 20:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, we can split it up :-). I won't do anything yet, but as of now, are you in agreement with those two points? —METS501 (talk) 20:29, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with "one hundred [and] six" for the lead so neither Yanks nor Brits complain of bias. I think perhaps it would be better to start off 106 (one hundred [and] six) is the number after 105... Since the article title is [[106 (number)]] (and not the words as it used to be) I think this makes more sense now. PrimeFan 20:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1000000000000 (number)

I nominated this for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1000000000000 (number) 2nd nomin. Comments are welcome there. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

This page was only nominated for deletion less than 24 hours ago, and already it has been changed instead to a redirect without sufficient time for discussion. Now its up for deleting it altogether. I have put it up for deletion review as I have reasoned argument for its keeping. PLEASE can we have at least have a decent amount of time to discuss things. What is the goddam rush ?? Just put trillion or billion into the search, and see what happens! The Yeti 22:57, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Thankfully now returned to AfD for a few more days. Please comment at Oleg's nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1000000000000 (number) 2nd nomin. The Yeti 13:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Italian interwikis

Anyone noticed that the Italian Wikipedia has moved their number articles to match our naming convention here in the English Wikipedia? e.g., [[Dodici]] redirects to [[12 (numero)]]. Could we get a bot to adjust our interwiki links accordingly? PrimeFan 23:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Total dispute of number inclusion requirements

I disagree with almost every entry on the "Criterion for including cultural associations" section on the project page. Numbers, by their very nature, will occur anywhere and everywhere. The kinds of lists that tend to accumulate are utterly worthless. While discussion of cultural significance of numbers is certainly welcome, listing a vast array of places in which they occur is simply trivia. --Eyrian 17:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

While it's true that often numbers simply "occur," other times they are chosen. Your blanket statements completely ignore that. Anton Mravcek 21:08, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
No, I have not. Only in very few cases are numbers actually chosen for a particular reason. Even then, it should be noted that such a selection must be both notable (and therefore citable). --Eyrian 21:13, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Let's be specific for a minute: What about the homages to Douglas Adams with 42? Anton Mravcek 21:17, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Douglas Adams' version of 42 has its own article. Notable references to it belong there. --Eyrian 21:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm willing to compromise here, and I think I speak for the other project members that they too are willing to compromise. Are you, Eyrian? Look at the discussions here and elsewhere about NASCAR car numbers. If I remember correctly, I used to delete many of them. But after talking with Wikipedia editors who are fans of NASCAR, we came up with a compromise acceptable to everyone: if the car won a cup, its number is worth including. This makes sense to me because I think people who know about that winning number would expect the number article to not only mention it but also elaborate it with other facts they might not have known.
So if you're willing to patiently discuss these criteria one by one, instead of just dismissing all of them with the wave of a hand, we're willing to listen. PrimeFan 22:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm willing to compromise only so far. Things need to be specific to the numbers in order to be included. What people "expect" is based entirely on speculation. The compromises aren't acceptable to everyone, I disagree with almost all of them, and many other people do. A separate project simply cannot dictate global policy. --Eyrian 23:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
You indulged me a little bit in talking about the Douglas Adams 42s. Can we talk more about that specific case, or another specific case of your choosing, instead of just bleating about how you disdain the entire concensus of the others? Anton Mravcek 23:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Bleating? That's a personal attack. Don't do it. I dispute pretty much every single guideline, and I'm more than happy to talk about whatever you wish. However, I've got some other things preoccupying me at the moment, so by all means, feel free to guide the discussion. --Eyrian 23:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
"Bleating" is not a personal attack, it's just a way of saying "harping on" or "constantly repeating." You've repeated many times your disdain of the entire set of criteria, isn't that a fact? With anyone else it would be very surprising to see citing WP:NPA here.
But alright, I'll guide the discussion in the next section. I think we should start with sports. Anton Mravcek 23:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reviewing Numbers in sports criteria

"Numbers that appear in the official rules of the game, such as the total number of players per team, number of game partitions (e.g., 9 innings in baseball) are worth mentioning in the number articles."

This makes sense for the best-known sports. Those who know baseball expect the article on 9 to say a typical baseball game has 9 innings. Those who don't would appreciate it, perhaps almost as much as learning what was the maximum number of overtime innings ever played. Anton Mravcek 00:03, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Why? Was nine chosen for a specific reason? Can you cite that? And even if so, is this significant to the number 9? --Eyrian 00:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
9 was just an example. I could as easily have chosen 300, or 1200, or 3. Why do you think the guy who came up with the 3-revert rule chose 3? "2 is too few and 7 is way too many"? I don't think so. He was thinking about the 3-strike rule in baseball, or some other sport rulebook where 3 is some important limit. Anton Mravcek 21:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Are you sure? Why don't you back that up with a cite. --Eyrian 22:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

"A record is worth mentioning if it is from a Major League player, or if it appears in the Guinness Book of World Records. Be sure to indicate the year the record was set in order to facilitate removal when a new record is set."

This makes sense because otherwise number articles could be flooded with minutiae like "In such and such game in 1943 John Smith batted in 53 runs." Who says we didn't think about this possibility and wrote a guideline to address it? Anton Mravcek 00:03, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
This isn't meaningful. If it wasn't 64 runs it'd be 63 or 65. As I've said, numbers will occur anywhere and everywhere. That's what numbers are about. They measure the real world. --Eyrian 00:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Once records are set in the national pastime, however, they are set in the national consciousness and become a shorthand. Of course in our age of mass media fracturing, not everyone is privy to the shorthand. "I'm worried about that Barry Bonds just hit 714." A 'directory' (a sports almanac in this case) would probably have more way numbers than our puzzled news viewer could make sense of. But Wikipedia could get him right to the heart of the matter. What would Carl Pomerance, who researched Hank-Aaron pairs say about this? Anton Mravcek 21:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I think you meant Ruth-Aaron pairs. A very well chosen example. PrimeFan 23:46, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Certainly not in my consciousness. This verges on a dictionary definition, which doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not for listing every meaning of a word, it's for describing things in an encyclopedic manner. --Eyrian 22:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
But a good article begins with a dictionary definition, after the definition, you can get to the encyclopedic meat of the matter. Would you throw that back in people's faces after succeeding in destroying the dictionary definitions? Anton Mravcek 21:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

"In sports where the number on a player's shirt is not determined by the position he plays, only numbers that have been retired by a Major League team are worth noting. But if a player's number is determined by the position he plays, this probably falls under the rules of the game consideration above."

This makes sense because some sports fans will want to list every single player who's ever worn a certain number, from rejected draft picks all the way up to Hall of Famers. But we thought about this and wrote a guideline for it. This situation in fact has already arisen and project members have addressed it accordingly. Anton Mravcek 00:03, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
This is ridiculous. This is simply the wrong way of doing things. People's numbers should be listed on their articles, not the other way. Wikipedia is not a directory, which is what that is tantamount to. --Eyrian 00:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Why can't it be both ways? Why can't Jackie Robinson's article mention his number 42 was retired and the number 42 article mention that the number was retired for Jackie Robinson? Maybe it was just luck the Jackie Robinson got that number, but if a player in, say, a Pakistani baseball league chooses 42, wouldn't it have been because of Jackie?
It's not a directory to list one famous player's number and a couple other famous players who chose their number in homage to him. It's encyclopedic. Knodeltheory 16:35, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Three days ago Eyrian told Knodeltheory that retired jersey numbers sound alright. Now he seems to be saying that jersey numbers should not be listed at number articles at all. Of course people have the right to change their minds. But only in inverse proportion to how authoritarian they consider their own opinion to be. Anton Mravcek 21:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Temporary concession/insanity. I said it because it seemed like an acceptable compromise when I wasn't as committed to the task. I don't think that they belong now. --Eyrian 22:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Between those adamant that none of them should be included and those adamant that all of them should be included, maybe we should just side with whoever is more obnoxious in their adamance. PrimeFan 23:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Anton neglected to quote the guideline for NASCAR car numbers. This guideline was created by concensus with members of WP:NASCAR, who, by modeling this guideline on the more general ones for sports that already existed at the time, by concensus put their stamp of approval on those as well. PrimeFan 00:07, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Continuing discussion, I've heard a lot of talk about "compromise". What we should be doing is evaluating whether particular entries have strong association the number. Everyone has individual biases. Everyone has numbers that mean something special to them. Again, what we really need to underscore here is whether the number itself is meaningful. The meaning of 666 is particular. It's about that number. Importance of atheletic numbers tend to be importance of the person who (in almost every case) tends to just happen to have that number assigned to them. --Eyrian 16:32, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
It might not be 666 at all, but 616 or even 665! 79 is more strongly tied to gold than 666 is to the devil.
As a recent 20/20 program showed, today's athletes are more superstitious than ever. Maybe Jackie Robinson didn't choose 42. But any American athlete today who chooses 42 would be thinking of Jackie Robinson, while any who rejects 42 would be thinking of Pat Tillman. Anton Mravcek 20:27, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The WP:NUM criteria: excellent but perhaps a bit outdated

The inclusion criteria given by WP:NUM are excellent. If the project members were slightly more active about enforcing them, rather than waiting for a critic to overcompensate, pruning would be a much less gigantic task. Many critics seem to think that the project members don't know that numbers are infinite or that they occur infinitely often. Yet the guidelines they've written show a keen awareness of this. A close reading supports this view. For the fields of human endeavor they've considered, they've neatly ruled out all the ephemeral and highly local instances of numbers that people could conceivably (or even improbably) add to the articles. A little more assiduousness in removing that which has already been identified as local and ephemeral would cut down in the amount of pruning that has to be done all at once for the more popular numbers, like 42 and 47.

I wonder if Eyrian only halfway skimmed the criteria before condemning them. My day job is in the law, and I confess that when I'm off the clock, I only skim software EULAs. Software offered as is, don't reverse-engineer, indemnify and hold harmless, laws of California, got it, accept.

One day a year or so ago, I did read the WP:NUM guidelines closely. I remember reading something about the number of dead American soldiers in Iraq was about to hit 2,000. Today I skim the guidelines and it seems that not much has changed. Some updating, and even some extremely adversarial review (of the kind Eyrian is providing) would be healthy. Robert Happelberg 23:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I read all of them. And while no, not completely worthless, they generally tend toward overwhelming triviality. --Eyrian 15:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
That's the opinion of one man angry he didn't get his way against a concensus of several Wikipedia users AND published book authors like David Wells, Bryan Bunch and George Iffra, who find a lot of cultural details about numbers interesting. CompositeFan 17:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] waht to do bout Barry Bonds

he hit 755 and evryone in the stadium held up asterisk signs. what do we do here? Numerao 18:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Everyone? That sounds like an overstatement. Some people cheered, some booed, a few held up the asterisk signs. Nevertheless, we still face that question. I propose the addition below. PrimeFan 18:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

"Records that are accepted by the regulating authority of the sport are valid as far as WikiProject Numbers is concerned, regardless of whether or not the fans demand an asterisk."

they say teh baseball commissner wasnt their. but I heard taht from Mitch Albom, so i dont know... Numerao 23:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Square roots?

The project page says to include "Reals: Important mathematical constants such as e and π." And obviously square roots of 2 and 3, looks like. Has anyone considered how far to go, or what notability criteria to use? I proposed deletion of the square root of 5, but looks like I'm going down in flames there. It's had enough stuff added in the process that it might pass as notable now. What next? Is that enough? Square root of 6? Square root of 7? I tried square root of 4; that got a few laughs; see User:Dicklyon/Square root of 4. What's the status of the number notability guidelines? Root 5 clearly does not meet them, but it's not clear if that matters. Dicklyon 05:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

There's no doubt in my mind that the square root of 2 is notable. Didn't Pythagoras sacrifice an entire herd when he figured out it was irrational? And Theodorus put his name on the square root of 3, so I'd say that makes it notable. Square root of 5 occurs in the formula of the golden ratio, but it can be argued that that's about the golden ratio more than anything else. We should probably write a notability guideline for square roots that puts square root of 5 just a tiny bit above the threshold of notability.
I looked up 3.14159 and 2.71828 in the OEIS. Both those sequences have the keywords nonn,cons,nice,core. The decimal expansions of the square roots of 2, 3, and 5 have only nonn,cons (which would also be true of obscure constants).
I wouldn't say you're "going down in flames there." Judging by the edit history, your criticism has actually had a salutary effect on the article (you're not coming across like a meanie one bit). I thank you, (we should all thank you) for bringing this up here; clearly we hadn't given it much thought before because we were so focused on integers. CompositeFan 22:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I would certainly not argue about root 2 and root 3; root 3 is named after a guy, which pretty much makes it notable, too. Root 5 is definitely on the edge; I don't intend to fight it any more, but it would be nice to get some guidelines so it doesn't go any further. Dicklyon 23:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
We can all probably agree that if it has a name, and its decimal expansion and continued fraction are both listed in the OEIS with the keyword "core," then Wikipedia should have an article on it. Absent these, someone advocating an article about a particular irrational number ought to produce several papers by professional mathematicians using the number.
In regards to root 5, I've looked for something not connected to the golden ratio, but I couldn't find anything. But Michael Hardy did find that stuff about Ramanujan's identities, so I don't feel so bad in my failure. Anton Mravcek 02:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, several interesting papers were found, in which the square root of 5 plays an important role. But the papers are not about the square root of five. Do those qualify as significant coverage? I guess so, as it closed with speedy keep. Dicklyon 03:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] International concensus for atomic numbers

When the Spanish, or Slovene, or French, or Belorussian, or whichever language Wikipedia begins its own suite of number articles and copies some material from ours, they usually reject things pertaining to our awkward non-metric system, jersey numbers of our less famous athletes, titles of our pop songs. They don't always reject the same things. But they always take the atomic numbers of the elements, from helium up to at least the lanthanides and actinides. This tantamounts to concensus, international concensus, that atomic numbers belong in these number articles. Anton Mravcek 20:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Wikipedia:Notability (numbers) (shortcut WP:NUMBER)

I have proposed that Wikipedia:Notability (numbers) be moved to Wikipedia:Numbers (break the existing redirect); that it restrict references to notability to references to WP:N, and that it continue to concern itself with guiding the evolution of wikipedia content on the subject of numbers. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Notability (numbers)‎. --SmokeyJoe 05:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

taht sounds good , eccept I woudln't say anything about "guiding teh evolution of wikipedia content" let that evolve on it's own. I wuold also remove all teh irrleveant stuff like talking about years and chemcical compounds and crystal ball. Numerao 23:15, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] splitapart 10k - 90k

they've split apart 10000 (number) into ten articles, so 20000 (number) etc. I can take care of the infoboxes (one a day). Numerao 23:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming articles covering a range of integers sth. like "200-299 (numbers)"

There's been a discussion at talk:500 (number), which I hereby move here:--Niels Ø (noe) 23:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

"A user has requested a request for comment on science or math for this section. This tag will automatically place the page on the {{RFCsci list}}. When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list."

[edit] One page for 500 (number) through 599 (number)?

In accordance with a sensible procedure practiced by User:GUllman, the articles for the numbers 501 to 599 will be 'grown' here in the article on 500 until they are big enough to merit their own articles. Once that happens, a new page is created for the number in question, linking back to this page, and this page is changed to indicate that the number now has its own article. PrimeFan

Is this practice really such a good idea? I personally found it highly confusing when I first encountered this. A casual surfer may not immediately notice that e.g. 587 (number) redirects to 500 (number), which contains the desired info (on the number 587), but only in a long and unwiedly list. What do others think? 86.56.48.12 12:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
In my opinion this is an excellent way to do it. This avoids 90 one sentence articles and the headache that would come with moving or applying mass changes to all of them. --Chuck Sirloin 14:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I'll go for keeping them here. Most of the information on individual numbers is rather irrelevant (prime decomposition, belongs to some sequence,...) ceretainly not worthy a individual article. - Nabla 00:54, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I fully agree with Sirloin. >Radiant< 09:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Redirects like the 587 to 500 example are certainly confusing. I try to redirect them to an anchor within the rounded number article whenever I encounter them (perhaps I should take one day to take care of this more systematically). For example, having 587 redirect to something like 500 (number)#580s.
As for Sirloin's comment, that would be 99 one-sentence articles. If the line for a particular number grows to more than a sentence, we can review whether that particular number merits its own article per the guidelines at WP:NUM. PrimeFan 21:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion - see #Suggestion below. — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 20:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with PrimeFan and believe the numbers should merge into 500 (number). This is already done with 401 (number) and 601 (number), and seems to work all right there. Doing the same for the 500s will make things more consistent. Foobaz·o< 11:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for having a single article for 100 numbers, but it needs to have an appropriate name. As 86.56.48.12 said, it could be quite confusing to a casual surfer. But yes, I do agree with the idea. Alex9788 08:40, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to add, after looking at other articles in the integer category, the whole category needs a cleanup, mainly to make it much more consistent. Really, this category has the potential to be very neat and tidy. For example, when dealing with 1 to 1000, 10 pages of 100 integers each, all with the same layout and format, then links to main articles for numbers with a lot of information. As it is, there doesn't seem to be much in common between articles in the category, so it's like having a book where every page has a totally different format and layout. NB I'm not trying to be critical of what's already been done, it's just a suggestion for improvement. Alex9788 08:50, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think it would make more sense to have an article with a title such as 500-599 (numbers) (or 500 to 599 or Five hundreds or 500s (numbers)) for the integer range consolidation, rather than just redirecting to 500 (number). Individual pages with substantial content could still remain forked off. — RJH (talk) 20:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you have an opinion on Xiutwell's idea (given below)? PrimeFan 21:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I think it would result in an inordinately long table of contents, unless it was replaced with a grid-style table. — RJH (talk) 14:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I second RJHall on both of his/her posts. I agree that 500-599 (numbers) would be a far more logical and less confusing article title and I see no reason to prefer Xiutwell's idea over this. -- Rei 16:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that RJH's idea of naming the article Five hundreds is the best idea. It isn't confusing, and it accurately describes what the page will contain. --דניאל - Dantheman531 15:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Personally, if I were to see "Five hundreds", I would have no clue what that is about. Sounds like some sort of organization or something. "500-599 (numbers)", to me, doesn't seem like it could be misconstrued. -- Rei 17:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I suppose that's true. --דניאל - Dantheman531 17:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the 500-599 (numbers) title change. Who else agrees? Wikidudeman (talk) 13:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I concur. 500-599 (numbers) would avoid any Talk:500 (number)/draftconfusion. Zapateria 20:08, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's a suggestion for structuring the articles. The structure changes at 200, 400, 2000, 10000, 10^9 and 10^42 (and perhaps also at 1000 and 10^100); each of these limits could be changed without changing the general idea - perhaps, one should analyze carefully how much material we have for each article before making that decision.

One could also have an overlap between the different structures, but I think that would cause undesirable confusion.

Using "10^" for powers of ten and using "-1" for minus one in the titles of articles for very large numbers is not a god idea; please help finding a better solution!

  • Individual articles for all numbers 0-199 (and also for selected larger integers, linked as main articles from the relevant "... (numbers)" article):
0 (number), 1 (number), 2 (number), ..., 199 (number) (and e.g. 666 (number)).
  • "Decade" articles for numbers 200-399, "century" articles for numbers 400-1999, and "millennium" articles for numbers 2000-9999:
200-209 (numbers), 210-219 (numbers), ..., 390-399 (numbers);
400-499 (numbers), 500-599 (numbers), ..., 1900-1999 (numbers);
2000-2999 (numbers), 3000-3999 (numbers), ..., 9000-9999 (numbers).
  • "Logarithmic decade" articles for numbers 10^4 to 10^9-1, and "logarithmic milennium" articles for numbers 10^9 to 10^42-1:
10000-99999 (numbers), 100000-999999 (numbers), ..., 100000000-999999999 (numbers);
10^9 to 10^12-1 (numbers), 10^12 to 10^15-1 (numbers), ..., 10^39 to 10^42-1 (numbers).
  • One article for numbers from 10^42 to infinity:
10^42 to infinity (numbers),
  • or perhaps two articles instead:
10^42 to 10^100-1 (numbers), 10^100 to infinity (numbers).
  • Redirect pages to the above "... (numbers)" articles for all numbers up to about 1000 that do not have individual articles (and also for selected larger integers):
202 (number), 203 (number), ..., 998 (number) (and e.g. 1601 (number)).

Right now, we have articles for all numbers up to 201 (number), but only a rediect at 202 (number). We have either an article or a redirect for all numbers up to 762 (number), but not 763 (number). We also have the article Orders of magnitude (numbers). Perhaps, for the large numbers, we should make a clearer distinction between numbers that are integers (like number of humans living on earth), and numbers that are not (like the Eddington-Dirac number)? --Niels Ø (noe) 10:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that once you get over five digits it becomes difficult to read the number at a glance unless it includes commas. Another possibility would be Millions (numbers), Billions (numbers) and Trillions (numbers), then switch over to scientific notation per your example. — RJH (talk) 21:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
So Millions (numbers) would cover 1 000 000 - 999 999 999 (yes I prefer blanks rather than commas!), Billions (numbers) 1 000 000 000 - 999 999 999 999, Tillions (numbers) 1 000 000 000 000 - 999 999 999 999 999, i.e. three "logarithmic decades" each? Perhaps a good idea.--Niels Ø (noe) 21:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It looks like I generally agree with the vague consensus so far, so I'll sum up what I think:

  • Insubstantial rticles about numbers should be merged.
  • Merging 501 (number) into 500 (number), however, is weird.
  • Number ranges can be given fairly clear article titles, however, and this would allow a structure similar to the articles on years.
  • I support this sequence of names: 200 to 299 (numbers), 300 to 399 (numbers), ..., 900 to 999 (numbers), 1000 to 1999 (numbers), 2000 to 2999 (numbers), ..., 9000 to 9999 (numbers), 10000 to 99999 (numbers), 100000 to 999999 (numbers), Millions (numbers), Orders of magnitude (numbers)

So the new thing I'm introducing is that I don't think billions and trillions need their own articles (and, for that matter, 10^39 certainly does not!). Trillions is easy to justify, because those numbers already don't have their own articles (trillion already redirects to Orders of magnitude (numbers)). But also, if we try to have a separate article on "billions", then we have to either side with the US or the UK on how much a billion is.

We currently have 1000000 (number), 10000000 (number), 100000000 (number), 1000000000 (number) (filling the role of the proposed "billions"), and then Orders of magnitude (numbers). I suggest merging the first three into Millions (numbers). The content of 1000000000 (number), I think, is not spectacular enough to justify trying to come up with a good name for it: the orders of magnitude page has much better examples of numbers in that range, and is better equipped to try to give a sense of scale. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 22:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

Giving each number a level-1 header would give each number a seperate section...— Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 20:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

That might be a good idea. Just make sure you supress or compress the TOC. Thoughts, anyone else? PrimeFan 21:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Click here to see Xiutwel's example--Niels Ø (noe) 23:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

How about this? — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 20:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I just transcluded that. And my experience found that the tier system in place with this particular section was awkward (note I modified it slightly). I'd recommend following suit with 600 (number), whereby numbers are not individually sectionised, but still conviniently grouped by 10s for editing and navigation purposes. No single number seems likely to require its own section.--ZayZayEM 03:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Super Bowl XLII, etc.

Should Super Bowl XLI be in 41 (number), Super Bowl XLII in 42 (number), etc. I've been removing it from 42, and it keeps getting re-added. 41 is there, 40 is not. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 08:52, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Testing. Anyone at home at the project? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Definitely should NOT be there. The topic is 41, not the superbowl. We can't very well include discussion of all things numbered. I do slowly clean up such things, and revert new ones, but there's still a lot of junk that doesn't belong. Dicklyon 22:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I also think chapter numbers of the Qur'an should be omitted from number articles. Sura is much better to list chapters. There was a dispute at 106 (number) on August 15 but no comments to my post at Talk:106 (number). PrimeHunter 23:52, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
For numbers in religion, I think we can all agree on what the project page says: "In general, only numbers mentioned in the religion's sacred texts are worth mentioning in the number articles. ... Numbers that depend on a particular edition, such as page numbers or footnote numbers are generally not considered important."
So, in the case of the Qu'ran: were the chapter numbers the invention of the human editors, or were they handed down by God, according to that religion's dogma? Anton Mravcek 02:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm no expert and only did short reasearch for this. The chapters (called sura) of the Qu'ran were recited by Muhammad over more than 20 years. 19 years after his death the traditional ordering was decided by an appointed committee. It is roughly in order of decreasing size. The ordering was supposedly based on things Muhammad had said, but I haven't seen indication that Muhammad listed the specific numbers, and the numbers are not mentioned in the text of the chapters. PrimeHunter 10:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can an IP address join a project?

— Arthur Rubin | (talk) 07:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Amharic Numbers

I just wanted to point out that Amharic numbers have been added to pages 1-9 by 130.237.50.84. Since these are just the roman numerals in brackets ("[1] [2] ...") I have attempted to contact the user to confirm that this is how the numbers should appear in that language and that it is not a formatting error. If I hear a response I will post it below. VegKilla (talk) 12:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean? "[1] [2] ..." are not Roman numerals, they are Arabic numerals. And neither of these is what 130.237.50.84 has been adding: The numerals in Ge'ez alphabet#Numerals. Maybe they are not supported by your browser. See Help:Multilingual support (Ethiopic). PrimeHunter (talk) 15:10, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers in statistics

This is a subheading on the project page, and says:

"For the statistical significance of a number to be worth including in a number article, it must either be:

  1. A number of axiomatic importance to the principles of statistics, i.e., a number that appears in many of the formulas used by statisticians. That's probably numbers like 1, 2 and π.
  2. A statistic that has attained historical or mythical status. "One half of all marriages end in divorce" is one example."

I'm a statistician. Under (1) I can think of only one, namely 1.96 (or more precisely 1.9599639845401..), which is the .975 point of the standard normal distribution and therefore is the multiplier used in 95% confidence intervals derived from the normal distribution (as many are in practice due to the central limit theorem). However this number doesn't appear to satisfy the criteria given at WP:Notability (numbers)#Irrational numbers e.g. it isn't in OEIS and it doesn't have a commonly-accepted name. Anyone think it's worth creating 1.96 ?

Under (2), the only one that comes to mind is "2.4 children", the near-legendary UK average family size (now closer to 1.8). "2.4" currently redirects to "anamorphic format" though. Qwfp (talk) 19:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

In regards to ~ 1.96, what would be the most recent journal paper in which you saw that number? In regards to 1/2, do you think the marriage example is mythical or is it close to reality? CompositeFan (talk) 15:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I was feeling bold (and bored) so I went ahead and created 1.96 so please see therein for a couple of references - i'll try to add a couple more at some point. If I shouldn't have created it I apologise... I dare say I'll find out soon enough.
The reality or otherwise of "half of all marriages..." and "2.4 children" is outside my area of expertise I'm afraid. Personally I doubt either are really noteworthy enough to be worth WP articles. --Qwfp (talk) 00:08, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template or table?

I've noticed that lots of the numbers articles have a template, while others (including the example on the project page) have tables with the same information. I personally, think that the template looks a lot better, but before I go around replacing them all, I just wanted to check here first to see what other people think. Jkasd 04:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead. Just try to avoid creating red links to articles about numbers we don't intend to create (e.g., 399 and 401, 8999 and 9001, etc.) PrimeFan (talk) 21:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Fixed the template so no redlinks would be created. Jkasd 22:30, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
BTW, this is going to take a while so any help would be appreciated. Just start at Template:Number to see how to use it, and then move the information from the pre-existing tables to the template. Jkasd 22:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
No one expects you do it all by yourself AND fast, but you can certainly choose to do it by yourself and gradually, slowly, or to coordinate. I'll take a look at your contributions page and decide on a spot I could start at. PrimeFan (talk) 21:57, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I have a pretty erratic schedule myself, but yeah, we probably could get it done in a few weeks. I've been putting the template at the very top, above the lead, because I think we should have a standardized place where it goes. Also, I've had some trouble using the misc parameter for 15 (number) and 16 (number). Anyways, thanks. Jkasd 23:27, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why is disambiguation lumped in on the "(number)" pages?

I'm sorry if this is an old issue or one that's explained somewhere else; I've scanned this article and WP:NUMBER and am still puzzled. Feel free to direct me to another reference if appropriate.

Basically, my question is, why do these articles combine information about the number itself with the content of a disambiguation page, and plunk the whole thing at X (number) instead of X (disambiguation)? Today I was looking up an article which turned out to be located at Interstate 66, but to find it on the 66 (number) page I had to wade through all kinds of stuff like which athletes wore the number "66" on their uniforms. Why is there not a separate 66 (disambiguation) page for topics that are referred to as "66", as opposed to all these other things that incorporate, refer to or represent the number itself? Propaniac (talk) 18:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Adding: I've gone through every archive of this Talk page for mentions of the issue (I ctrl+f-ed for "disambig") and while I can see some discussion, I still don't see anything indicating "This is why it makes sense to put the disambiguation on the (number) page instead of on its own page." Propaniac (talk) 18:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

While it has been said before that the number pages are not disambiguation pages, it doesn't hurt to say it again. Some people, including a few deletionists, like to put every single bullet point they can think of on these number pages.
But at the same time let's also keep in mind that there are mathematical reasons for some number usages in our culture. The number of innings in a baseball game, a perfect score in bowling, an unlucky score in cricket, etc., these can all be explained mathematically. We (the project members) want the number articles to have paragraphs explaining these. What we don't want is a long, bullet-point list of items ephemerally related to a number (e.g., Smith the rookie wore #66 for half a season in 2001). PrimeFan (talk) 22:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)