Talk:Dixon algebra

Reviewer Comments

This draft appears to consist of original research by Dixon apparently trying to use Wikipedia to publish his research on Dixon algebra. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:54, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

I will be referring this draft to WT:WikiProject Mathematics for further review. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:54, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

As per comments at the WikiProject, I am going to decline this, at least for now. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:29, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Decline Comments

This draft does not establish (at least, for a scientist who is not an abstract mathematician) the notability of the concept of the Dixon algebra. Also, it appears that this may be largely original research by Geoffrey Dixon.

Here are a few comments. First, this draft still lacks a lede sentence of the form: "The Dixon algebra is an algebraic structure that ...." Second, this draft doesn't explain why it is called the Dixon algebra, namely, that it has been used by Geoffrey Dixon as a mathematical basis for a theory of everything (or whatever). Third, the references appear to be all to the work of either Geoffrey Dixon or Cohl Furey, indicating that it does not seem to be used by other scholars. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:35, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Stub Comments

Now that the draft has been reduced to a stub by User:Michael Hardy, I will accept the stub. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:18, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Notability

Echoing the earlier comments by Robert McClenon, it's not clear how the subject is notable. There are very few papers that ever refer to this algebra and it is not clear why it is notable. The evidence given is solely that there is one paper written by a postdoc that mentions the Dixon algebra and posits a hypothetical relationship between its ideals and the Standard Model, and a Quanta article about that same paper.

(Minor notational remark: why is it even being presented as $\mathbb {R} \otimes \mathbb {C} \otimes \mathbb {H} \otimes \mathbb {O}$? Since these tensor products are over the reals, why not just write $\mathbb {C} \otimes \mathbb {H} \otimes \mathbb {O}$? I suppose the Wikipedia article should reflect the standard notation in the scientific literature, but in this case the "mainstream literature" regarding Dixon algebras consists of two papers.) MarkH21 (talk) 08:50, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I find the idea that this algebra may underlie the Standard Model to be marginal notability, but that is only my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:11, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

But that does not seem to be accepted by any sizeable portion of the scientific community. There are tons of ideas thrown out by individuals that have no scientific weight or support that "possibly" explain the Standard Model and many other things. While I am not making any claims against the validity of this idea, there's not really any evidence yet to demonstrate that this is a notable one. (WP:FRINGE). There are only two secondary sources, but one of them is a report about the other. MarkH21 (talk) 11:27, 2 November 2018 (UTC)