Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2024/Jan

Undue weight (Lambert function)

Looking at a recent edit in it.wiki, I noticed that the Lambert function page (as well as some related one) is full of references to the work of T.C. Scott and his collaborators always added by the same user (TonyMath), which I presume is Scott himself. The same applies to en.wikipedia (although here it is less obvious because the relevant pages are longer) and in many other languages. I cannot immediately judge all his additions, but my guess is that his work is being given undue weight, given all the scientific literature that is being published nowadays. For sure, the very recent work related to the Riemann hypothesis that he just linked seems not nearly notable enough to be referenced on Wikipedia. There are many many criterions for the Riemann hypothesis, only a few of which are notable, and the fact that an obscure one can be expressed by using also a generalization of the Lambert function (which is a very natural/simple function to come up in all sort of problems) is not very relevant at all. It would be helpful if someone could give a look to his edits to see if his works should be referenced or not. --Sandrobt (talk) 10:03, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that paper from less than a month ago is not due mention in that context. XOR'easter (talk) 15:30, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

For clarification, I was given the green light to include the section on the Generalized Lambert W function by a Wikipedia editor. This Generalized Lambert W function has a number of successful applications in Physics and Applied Mathematics. The talk section for the Lambert W function will confirm that. I was told to be bold and make the changes myself. Since then I have taken it upon myself to make the updates in good faith. There is a considerable and noteworthy body of work associated with the Generalized W function. FYI, that work by Ross McPhedran on the Keiper-Li Criterion for the Riemann Hypothesis is notable. It might not be maybe ready to be cited on the Wiki page for the Riemann Hypothesis but IMHO, it is worthy of the Wiki page for the Lambert W function itself (which is always looking for applications). Having said all this, I will adhere to this change of policy. TonyMath (talk) 03:13, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

There's been no change in policy; WP:SECONDARY, WP:DUE and WP:COI have been the "law of the land" (as it were) for a long time. XOR'easter (talk) 04:24, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Rest assured, I am not asking you to overturn your decisions. I am aware of these policies which is why I pleaded my case on the talk page for the Lambert W function. Robinh read my papers, deemed them worthy and gave me the green light and told me be bold and make the changes myself. TonyMath (talk) 04:45, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Li's criterion is indeed notable as it attracted quite some interest at the time (I didn't realize you were referring to it since you used the non-standard name Keiper-Li). However your work on the criterion is clearly not sufficiently relevant to be mentioned in Wikipedia. And as far as I'm concerned a clean up should not be limited to that paper. Of all the generlizations of Lambert's function only yours are relevant? It's a function that has appear countless many times. I doubt the literature on its generalization reduces to your works only.--Sandrobt (talk) 20:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The reason why the Wiki section cites my work is because this generalization of the Lambert W function is largely my invention albeit worked out with collaborators in different fields. It has indeed many applications in fundamental Physics including relativity and quantum mechanics. As I mentioned before, I was given the green light as I mentioned earlier. There is also the work of Mező István which is similar but his generalization is a special case of my own. He is also cited in Wikipedia. Apart from that, I am not aware of any other generalizations of the Lambert W function that are useful and have so many applications with all due respect. However, if you are aware of any of them, you are welcome to add to the Wiki site. FYI, my generalization is the only one mentioned at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). See [1]. TonyMath (talk) 00:13, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I have no particular insight about this topic, but note that "given the green light" is not really how Wikipedia works. Anyone (including you) is welcome to "boldly" create/edit articles here, but then other editors are likewise welcome to dispute or modify those edits, and the final content/form of articles is decided by consensus. Nobody here is accusing you of doing anything inappropriate, but the decision about how the article should finally look doesn't really depend on any permission granted beforehand. –jacobolus (t) 01:23, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I fully appreciate what you are saying and I have tried to address this issue of consensus within the talk pages as best I could over the years. I should explain my motivations behind all this. The Lambert W function was one of those relativity obscure functions, invented by Lambert in the 18th century and "reinvented" every decade or so, ever since. Mathematicians and Physicists would stumble upon it without realizing it was Lambert's function. It wasn't until the 1990s, that the team of Mathematicians and Mathematical Physicists (including myself) involved with the Maple system that the ubiquitous nature of this function was realized. Applications grew in number and when the standard function was insufficient, generalizations were made to accommodate an even greater range of applications. Unlike other special functions, the Lambert W function was not developed in a holistic way. Rather we stumbled unto it by necessity. This is where the use of systems like Maple and Mathematica and awareness by e.g. Wikipedia and other online sites are very helpful. This helps avoid re-inventing the wheel. By now, there is definitely a body of work out there where some consensus has been achieved by users and researchers (although apparently, that consensus might not have been achieved w.r.t. Wikipedia). Please consider this before any further changes to the Wiki site. If I may (and at the risk of offending you), I cannot help but sense that part of the problem is that the Physics aspect might not be fully appreciated here. Let me point out that Lambert made contributions to Mathematics and Physics/Engineering. This work has always been inter-disciplinary. TonyMath (talk) 02:33, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Like many Wikipedia articles about mathematical functions (including some I have contributed to), this article is unfortunately currently substantially a compendium of loosely organized data, heavy on numbers and formulas (and in this case also gratuitous distracting proofs about indefinite integrals) and light on explanation, with poor narrative flow. What prose it does have assumes an extreme level of background and is all but illegible to most readers, densely full of undefined jargon. If anyone wants to best improve the article, in my opinion the most valuable contribution would be to add to/clarify the prose, and possibly get a bit choosier about the more obscure formulas. I don't know enough about this topic to help with that though. –jacobolus (t) 04:13, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree! The development of the Lambert W function over the years according to the historical dynamic I described has indeed lead to a somewhat chaotic and chunky site. IMHO, the Wiki page for the Lambert W function needs to be streamlined. A possibility would be to compartmentalize the Wiki site into at least two sites: one page for the main overall description and thrust of the function and the other with various identities and details i.e. a much needed overhaul. TonyMath (talk) 04:53, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Concerning the work on the Keiper-Li criteria, this is largely the work of Ross McPhedran. You insist that the paper is unworthy of mention. McPhedran is a mathematical Physicist of considerable renown. You can look him up in Google scholar. Have you even read the paper? IMHO, it's a considerable achievement and worthy of mention albeit not on the site of the Riemann hypothesis itself. TonyMath (talk) 00:34, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

McPhedran appears to have published four works on the Li criterion (arXiv:1801.07415, 2003.14241, 2311.06294, and ACM CCA), with a grand total of two citations on Google Scholar. There is no evidence that these works have had any impact whatsoever. He is indeed a notable physicist, but not notable for this. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:46, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Fine. Concerning McPhedran's work, clearly this has to be given time. At any rate, I am not asking to overturn the actions made so far. I was only answering the messages by @Sandrobt. TonyMath (talk) 01:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

For further clarification on the issue of why there aren't more generalizations reported in Wikipedia, when it comes to developing the Lambert W function, there are really only two main groups. There is the group of Robert Corless, David Jeffrey and co-workers including the canonical publication with the famous Computer Scientist Donald Knuth and my group with its collaborators including the great British physicist Alexander Dalgarno. There are a few other players, most of which I know or the group Corless et al. know. I wish there were more groups. On this issue of "consensus', from time to time, there have been individuals that have tried to contribute to the Wiki page only to be rejected. On the whole, I'd say Wikipedia editors have done their necessary filtering and supervision over the years. TonyMath (talk) 03:51, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Bernoulli polynomials and Euler polynomials

The article Bernoulli polynomials is almost as much about the Euler polynomials as it is about the Bernoulli polynomials. Would it be a good idea to rename the article to "Bernoulli polynomials and Euler polynomials"?  --Lambiam 19:08, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

See also Talk:Bernoulli polynomials § Requested move 24 December 2023.  --Lambiam 09:34, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Derivative#Total derivative, total differential and Jacobian matrix

The Derivative article looks pretty fair overall until towards the end, particularly § Total derivative, total differential and Jacobian matrix. It could use attention. I'm not convinced that it's adequately cited or that the {{citation needed}} tags are in the right places; the text seems overly detailed in places. XOR'easter (talk) 15:44, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

The article is about a special case, so I've uptated the {{about}} to reflect that and to provide more links. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:04, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

That's an awful lot of links. Would anyone really expect to find pushforward (differential) when they click on a link for Derivative? XOR'easter (talk) 17:07, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

My guess is that this article should be focused on the derivative concept, with some types and generalizations; that section is overly detailed IMO, and it could probably be removed and written on its own article, Total derivative. Hopefully, someone can give an alternative opinion. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 06:16, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I was just thinking that the material that really gets into the weeds could be moved over to total derivative. I'm reluctant to abandon it entirely, because it at least tried to explain motivations, but it needed work and probably did not belong in the same article that covers how to differentiate $x^{2}$. XOR'easter (talk) 14:43, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I already hide them for temporarily. It is almost complete, just only referencing problems in some sections. One citation needed tag appears in the definition by using the limit. The history of continuity and differentiable still needs more sources, especially for the claim that most of the functions are differentiable at all or almost every point. The directional derivative is a similar problem with the overly detailed total derivative; I guess this redundant point could be removed, but keep the last paragraphs and find some sources. The rest is the verifiability of the sources in some sections that I have to check and then find more sources again. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 14:51, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Sums of three cubes, and sums of four cubes

We have a page on the sum of four cubes problem, as well as the sums of three cubes problem. The two problems have significant overlap. The four cubes problem is definitively known for numbers not congruent to 4 or 5 mod 9 and is suspected true for numbers satisfying that congruence, while the three cubes problem is only suspected true for numbers not congruent to 4 or 5 mod 9 and definitively false for numbers satisfying that congruence. Also, naturally, if one were to prove the three cubes problem, then adding 1 or -1 would solve the four cubes problem too. Given the similarity, and the relative lack of content on the four cubes problem, is it worth keeping the two pages separate? GalacticShoe (talk) 22:00, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I think they are both distinct from each other in flavor, and long enough that a merger is not called for and would be unhelpful to readers seeking information on either one. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:42, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. Would it be useful for each article to include at least a short section on the other problem? As it stands, I feel like the two problems are connected enough to merit more than an inconspicuous listing in their See alsos. GalacticShoe (talk) 17:26, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

E (mathematical constant)#Alternative characterizations

I'm vaguely dissatisfied with e § Alternative characterizations. When I came across it, it was an uncited grab-bag of unmotivated properties without motivations or relations. I've tried to flesh it out, but I'm still not convinced this is the right way to present the material. XOR'easter (talk) 21:03, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't like the numbered list. I'd prefer just paragraphs of prose. –jacobolus (t) 17:03, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I've prosified that passage now and rearranged things somewhat. XOR'easter (talk) 17:37, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

After looking at this again, the whole section seems pretty redundant (there's also a "Representations" further down). It could possibly be just eliminated. –jacobolus (t) 18:29, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

That's a good point; however, I tend to feel that there's a difference between what is presented as a definition of e and a formula that eventually works out to e. People define e by saying that it's the sum of an infinite series or that it's the number which satisfies some nice calculus property, not that it is the result of a Wallis-like infinite product. I've edited the beginning of "Representations" to make it less redundant. XOR'easter (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

While we're here, what major things about $e$ is the article missing? XOR'easter (talk) 00:39, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Information processing (psychology)#Requested move 7 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Information processing (psychology)#Requested move 7 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 19:13, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Diagonal and co-diagonal

Since there was no source for the diagonal morphism, I added references to the article and then I realized that some of those references also explain the co-diagonal morphisim. So, I thought I'd add the definition of co-diagonal morphism to the Diagonal morphism. Is this notion in the correct place? If it is a correct, I'm thinking of renaming the article to the "Diagonal and co-diagonal" and create a redirect co-diagonal morphism. Also, which is better, codiagonal or co-diagonal? --SilverMatsu (talk) 00:00, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I added a figure. But, rather than adding a thumbnail to the top of the article, it may be better to split the figure into two and insert it into the body of the article. --SilverMatsu (talk) 00:17, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposed new project topic: Mathematics Didactics

Wikipedia is an educational platform in itself and this project, in particular, focuses on mathematics. Therefore, I believe it is essential to present the topic of ‘Research in Mathematics Didactics’. This field of study is crucial for improving the teaching and learning of mathematics, and I hope that by making it known, we can contribute to its development. Lucas Varela Correa (talk) 16:30, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

See existing article at Mathematics education and especially its extensive subsection Mathematics education § Research. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:38, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand what you are proposing specifically. Please feel free to contribute to Wikipedia articles about math education per se and also include material about math education where it is relevant to other articles.

Many of the Wikipedia articles about basic mathematical topics (at the primary/secondary school level) are incomplete or mediocre, and can definitely use help. If you give some idea of your expertise / interests, maybe someone can recommend a place to start. –jacobolus (t) 19:18, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I think the topic is research in mathematics education, rather than the practice of mathematics education or the subjects typically taught in the practice of mathematics education. My impression is that when people call it "didactics" they tend to mean a greater focus on the philosophy of the topic and less focus on how to actually go about doing it, but that may be an inaccurate opinion based on unfamiliarity. Regardless, see the link for our existing coverage of this topic. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:54, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The section Mathematics education § Research is IMO not very good. It's a grab bag of miscellaneous topics at different levels of abstraction, missing many fundamental related topics, with weak sourcing and several with inaccurate summaries of current scholarly consensus / pushing the POV of particular researchers. It would be great to have some experts work on improving this article and ideally expanding some of the pieces as separate articles. –jacobolus (t) 20:04, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Because randomized trials provide clear, objective evidence on “what works” — good news, everyone! We don't need no stinking meta-analyses! XOR'easter (talk) 01:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed that this section is not good. I've made a small edit to read "Because of an opinion that randomized trials..." which I think is an improvement, although I don't have any expertise in these topics. Gumshoe2 (talk) 03:26, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

When I say Mathematics Didactics I make reference to the investigation of how to improve the way why teach maths. I know one journal specialized in this topic is call PNA https://revistaseug.ugr.es/index.php/pna/ the language of the papers can be three English/Spanish/Portuguese Lucas Varela Correa (talk) 20:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

why no we sorry Lucas Varela Correa (talk) 21:03, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Also see Category:Mathematics education journals. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:01, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Original proof of Gödel's completeness theorem

There is a dispute at Original proof of Gödel's completeness theorem. Dirsaka claims to have found a fundamental flaw in Gödel's original proof. (Dirsaka does not claim that the actual result is wrong, just that particular proof.) I do not have time at the moment to follow through all the arguments, but the chance that an error so basic, in such a prominent piece of mathematical history, would have escaped notice till now, strikes me as ... unlikely. If anyone wants to dive in and figure it out, that would be a service. --Trovatore (talk) 19:02, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Well the latest addition obviously violated WP:OR and basic principles of how to write an encyclopedia article, and Dirsaka had never responded to the previous round of objections to their additions (several months ago), so I have reverted their addition. This did not require having an opinion on the underlying validity of either the proof or the objection. --JBL (talk) 19:16, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's fine procedurally. It would still be nice to understand the objection on the merits, even if not strictly required for purposes of maintaining the article. --Trovatore (talk) 19:23, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Here is my article explaining the error in Gӧdel's claimed proof of his incompleteness theorem better than my now deleted Wikipedia article comment does.--Dirsaka (talk) 04:56, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I just had a glance at your article. I didn't understand all details, but here is why your article doesn't convince me:

You quote from some version of Gödel's proof "let F be a functional variable" which I read as "let F be a symbol for a (binary) relation (on natural numbers)". Lateron, your main point of criticism appears to be that Gödel doesn't show that "F is of degree 0". However, degree is a property of formulas in prenex normal form, essentially counting the number of $\forall$/$\exists$ changes. So F, or, more precisely, F(r,n), as it occurs in the formulas B and C, with r, n being two bound variables over natural numbers, is an atomic formula, without any quantifiers; therefore it of course has degree 0. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 10:00, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

More on 0

There are a few remaining {{citation needed}} tags in the article 0. Almost half of them are in the "Computer science" section and can probably be sourced to technical manuals explaining the fundamentals of various languages. I have no will to push it through the GA or FA process, but it's highly visible as far as math articles go, and it'd be nice to have it free from flagged problems. XOR'easter (talk) 22:01, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

"differentiable symmetry"?

Hi Math folks. Noether's theorem starts out with this sentence:

• Noether's theorem or Noether's first theorem states that every differentiable symmetry of the action of a physical system with conservative forces has a corresponding conservation law.

The two words "differentiable symmetry" are both linked and the blue links make it appear to be one thing, a "differentiable symmetry", but the two links are to different articles. The pairing also appears in the section "Informal statement of the theorem" but no where else. It does not appear in Symmetry (physics) for example. Is it a thing?

If I search on Google for "differentiable symmetry" this exact sentence comes up again and again, making me wonder if the wikipedia version has become the source. I did not see "differentiable symmetry" anywhere in Noether's paper.

Things I read about symmetry use "continuous symmetry". For a physicist, we'd simply assume that a continuous symmetry was differentiable and vice versa until corrected by some math person. But is it true? I'm looking for a reference I can use for the combination. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Here is an arxiv article and a published sequel on non-smooth extensions of Noether's theorem. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 18:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I gather that your reply is equivalent to "differentiable symmetry is not required for Noether's theorem as evident by ..."? Johnjbarton (talk) 19:08, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Right, continuity isn't sufficient, but it doesn't strictly need to be smooth, either. But in the common nomenclature, people say continuous symmetry without thinking too hard about differentiability requirements. I'd agree with linking to continuous symmetry. If editors felt a need, they could report on differentiability requirements farther down int he article. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 19:30, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

It should probably just be a link to Continuous symmetry. (That article could be considerably expanded with more analysis of concrete examples.) –jacobolus (t) 18:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's my reaction. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:13, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I edited the article. (but not all of the internet that quotes it!) Johnjbarton (talk) 19:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Don't worry too much about quotations of old versions of Wikipedia floating around. There's nothing you can easily do about them, and they tend to have a relatively short half-life. –jacobolus (t) 20:17, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I would expect the phrase "differential symmetry" to mean something like a diffeomorphism, which is a single symmetry defined by a smooth function. But instead, here it refers to a smooth family of symmetries. Maybe that could be clarified. (Also, "smooth" is usually usable in place of differentiable and is much less technical. It is somewhat vague as to how smooth is smooth, but I think at the start of the article that's an ok price to pay for reduced technicality.) —David Eppstein (talk) 21:27, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't assume everyone reads "smooth" as vague. I think it's reasonably common to use "smooth" to mean specifically $C^{\infty }$. --Trovatore (talk) 21:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Unless explicitly specified in a source, this seems an abuse of terminology, and people should definitely not make that implicit assumption. "Smooth" is probably most commonly used to mean "continuously differentiable", but is generally a pretty vague term. –jacobolus (t) 22:59, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, in any case it's what's used in Differential Topology by Guillemin and Pollack, which was the text for my introduction to the subject as a first-year grad student. I don't know how widely used it is. --Trovatore (talk) 22:21, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

I assume this book makes an explicit definition though. For instance, Lee's Smooth Manifolds has the disclaimer: "You should be aware that some authors define the word smooth differently—for example, to mean continuously differentiable or merely differentiable. On the other hand, some use the word differentiable to mean what we call smooth. Throughout this book, smooth is synonymous with C^∞." –jacobolus (t) 23:12, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Vietoris-Rips filtration

I have been trying to fix a link to a disambiguation page on Vietoris-Rips filtration. Unfortunately, I have to admit that the article is way over my head. Can someone here solve this link and point is to the right article? Thanks in advance. The Banner talk 19:46, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

@The Banner: It might help if you said what the relevant disambig page was. --JBL (talk) 20:10, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Never mind, I figured it out (and disambiguated). --JBL (talk) 20:12, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much! The Banner talk 20:13, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I have just corrected the article's title so that it is called Vietoris–Rips filtration (with an en-dash, as required by WP:MOS) rather than Vietoris-Rips filtration (with a hyphen rather than an en-dash). I also corrected numerous occurrences of the phrase in the article, and fixed the links to the version with they hyphen.

I further corrected the omission of the links to the articles about the two eponyms, Leopold Vietoris and Eliyahu Rips.

One task that should be looked at by those familiar with the topic is to ascertain which other Wikipedia articles ought to link to this one and in particular whether the articles about the two eponyms should link to it. @The Banner: Michael Hardy (talk) 20:44, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Mathematical theory

Mathematical theory and its history could use more attention. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:53, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I think you should merge that article into Theory (mathematical logic). Johnjbarton (talk) 18:31, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the current content is better addressed at the link you give, but is that the right target for the title? Theory (disambiguation) says that the topic is "an area of mathematical research that is relatively self-contained", but recent edits have taken over the title and moved it in a different direction. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:35, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I think, to the extent that there's something for an article called (or redirected from) "mathematical theory" to be about, it has to be a theory in the sense of logic. It's certainly true that you can combine the words "mathematical" and "theory" in natural language to refer to other stuff, but we don't (or at least shouldn't) write articles to document how people can (or even do) put particular English words together according to the ordinary rules of English. There needs to be some encyclopedic "aboutness". Usually multi-word titles should be terms of art. --Trovatore (talk) 19:51, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

It seems worth trying to somewhere explain what the word theory in set theory, number theory, graph theory, group theory, etc. etc. is supposed to mean. This is not the same as Theory (mathematical logic). It's closer to scientific theory, but not quite the same. –jacobolus (t) 20:02, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I suspect that's going to be kind of OR-y. No doubt someone somewhere has written on the subject, but I don't think there's a general accepted answer. In general I'm skeptical of attempts to abstract some commonality out of language and write about it in Wikipedia. --Trovatore (talk) 20:13, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

It's only worthwhile to the extent that suitable secondary references exist. I see zero in the current article. Johnjbarton (talk) 20:27, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Honestly I would still find it concerning even if a ref or two could be dug up. I doubt there's any generally accepted account of what makes ring theory and fine-structure theory both "theories". I'm sure someone somewhere has made such a proposal, but just having written about it shouldn't entitle you to hijack general mathematical usage and make it sound as though everyone accepts your (ahem) theory on the subject.

If we do want to cover such an account, we should do it in a way that attributes it to the specific workers proposing it. --Trovatore (talk) 20:43, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Well in that case perhaps Mathematical theory should just be a redirect to List of mathematical theories, maybe with a quick 1- or 2-sentence definition/explanation at the top. –jacobolus (t) 20:48, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

That sounds like a decent solution. --Trovatore (talk) 20:49, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

(Added after Jacobolus suggested a quick explanation at the top.) I think we need to be careful in any such explanation not to reify a particular abstraction of the notion of "mathematical theory". --Trovatore (talk) 20:52, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I like Jacobolus's suggestion and have boldly gone ahead and done that. I also added Theory (mathematical logic) to the hatnote at the redirect target. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:57, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

LGTM --Trovatore (talk) 21:02, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I agree with erasing the discussion of what a mathematical theory is. For example in the Gauge theory (mathematics) I made a clear distinction between the physical use of the term "theory" as in mathematical model of a particular physical phenomenon and the mathematical term "body of knowledge". I reject the implication that every use of the term "theory" in mathematics is "a set of sentences in a formal language" and given the level of confusion the layperson tends to have over the word "theory" in maths and science it seems particularly bold to erase that discussion altogether. Tazerenix (talk) 21:19, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

There is a bit of (unsourced) discussion remaining at Theory#Mathematical. –jacobolus (t) 21:22, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a reference that the mathematical term is "body of knowledge"? That is the problem with the article, it is basically hearsay. Johnjbarton (talk) 22:51, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Here's one example, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-90035-3_8. There's also some relevant discussion at JSTOR 2695275, JSTOR 2026666, JSTOR 2214851, doi:10.1016/S0039-3681(01)00007-3, doi:10.1007/978-94-015-9558-2_24, https://people.math.osu.edu/cogdell.1/6112-Mazur-www.pdf, https://www.blackwellpublishing.co.uk/content/BPL_Images/Content_store/Sample_chapter/9780631218692/Jacquette.pdf. –jacobolus (t) 01:30, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:LEAST, I have changed the target of Mathematical theory into Theory#Mathematical. Indeed, a reader searching for "Mathematical theory" will probably want a definition of the concept rather than an indiscriminate list of mathematical theories. I have also edited the new target.

About the above discussion: it is sure that, in mathematics, "theory" and "mathematical theory" are terms of jargon that are widely used and rarely defined. The number of our articles that have "theory" in their names is a testimony of this. So, this has to be explained in Wikipedia. However, I do not believe that there is much more to say about this than that it is already in Theory#Mathematical. So, for the moment, there is no need of a separate article, and it suffices to improve Theory#Mathematical. D.Lazard (talk) 16:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

FAR for Emmy Noether

I have nominated Emmy Noether for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 20:30, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

I've long since lost any sense of what makes an article "featured", but what this article needs more than anything else is an algebraist who has a decent sense of which textbooks are the least incomprehensible to leave a few footnotes here and there. XOR'easter (talk) 00:19, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

History of Hindu–Arabic numerals images are almost certainly copyright violation

I just added the following comment at Wikimedia Commons Village Pump:

The image File:Evolution of Hindu-Arabic numerals.jpg is a very lightly modified version of a diagram from Karl Menninger's book Number Words and Number Symbols (1969), page 418, originally published in German (1934) as Zahlwort und Ziffer. This is a very clear copyright violation, though the author user:Hu741f4 claimed this as their own cc-by-sa licensed work.

A couple other images are almost certainly also copyright violation: File:Numeration-brahmi fr.png is translated into French, and according to the image description got the numeral images from Datta and Singh (1935) History of Hindu Mathematics which according to History of Hindu Mathematics and IA is in the public domain (I am not sure if that is accurate; the copyright page of these scans says "all rights reserved", but perhaps the copyright has expired in India). I can't immediately tell if this is true and the uploader user:Piero remade the image, or if this was also just scanned from Menninger then overwritten with translated labels, but either way this diagram is too closely based on Menninger's diagram to not be a clear-cut derivative work, and it's especially shady that there's no attribution to Menninger. This was then translated back into English as File:The_Brahmi_numeral_system_and_its_descendants.png by user:Tobus. Again Menninger is not credited, and this one has a description page which no longer makes any claims about where the glyph images come from.

It would be nice if someone would redraw an image that is not such a blatant ripoff. The wide use of these images across Wikimedia projects testifies to their importance. –jacobolus (t) 00:28, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Andrew Wiles

Just reminder. The article Andrew Wiles is preparing for the possibly the next FA. However, the content of this article may need attention from an expert. It is already more than two months since PR. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 03:41, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Fuzzy set

I noticed that Category:Iranian inventions and Category:Azerbaijani inventions have been added to Fuzzy set. I've never seen a category related to nationality added to an article about mathematics, so I find it a little strange. SilverMatsu (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

It was added in this edit back in March 2020. I agree that it seems odd to add nationality to mathematical 'inventions'. GalacticShoe (talk) 02:57, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I removed two categories related to nationality from the Fuzzy set. --SilverMatsu (talk) 15:31, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Vector space

Vector space has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 03:01, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll be honest. Three articles have been nominated to reassess the quality by GA criteria. One of them is Derivative, which is already under control; two of them are still ongoing (E (mathematical constant) and Vector space). I do think there are some old GA Mathematics that could be potentially delisted. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 11:03, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Sumudu transform

This discussion ought to be here on this page rather than at the Reference Desk. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

As well as Sumudu transform (re-created after a prod as a trivial variation of the Laplace transform) we now also have new articles Elzaki transform and Aboodh transform. These all have many citations in Google Scholar in what in many cases appear to be low-quality journals. Is this mainstream? Is it something we need to treat similarly to WP:FRINGE, something that can only meet our standards for neutrality if we have mainstream sources assessing it by mainstream standards? — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Eppstein (talk • contribs) 20:39, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Both Elzaki transform and Aboodh transform are named after their inventors by their inventor themselves, in articles published in the same predatory journal. So the citations of these articles are probably authored by members of their teams. So, I'll PROD these two articles, and if the Prod tag is removed, I recommend to nominate the three articles to AfD. D.Lazard (talk) 09:52, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

There are many self-citations but there are many not. I think it would be more accurate to say that the citations are authored by members of the same subcommunity of researchers. But if the whole subcommunity largely publishes in predatory journals, then we should not take their citation counts as meaningful. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:46, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

@D.Lazard: Update: Aboodh transform has been unprodded. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:15, 28 January 2024 (UTC)