Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics

  1. Home
  2. Wiki
Main pageDiscussionContentAssessmentParticipantsResources
WikiProject iconMathematics Project‑class
WikiProject iconThis page is within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of mathematics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MathematicsWikipedia:WikiProject MathematicsTemplate:WikiProject Mathematicsmathematics
ProjectThis page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Michael Aschbacher

[edit]

Would another editor or editors please take a look at the section "Classification of finite simple groups" in the Michael Aschbacher article? It has three paragraphs that paraphrase a significant chunk of an article in Social Studies of Science. I suspect that probably a briefer summary of the SSS article is appropriate, but that the amount paraphrased there is probably WP:UNDUE. It also tends to single Aschbacher out for criticism, which may raise WP:BLP issues. I feel too close to finite group theory (and have met Aschbacher once or twice), and do not want to be the one who picks out what is due/undue here. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 11:47, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've read the paper, and thus seems like a fair summary. That paper references a lot of more primary literature, such as Gorenstein's personal reflections, and the few paragraphs in the article might benefit from better attribrution. Tito Omburo (talk) 12:25, 12 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it's a fair summary. My concern was about WP:DUE criticism of a living person sourced to the journal literature in social studies of mathematics. For one thing, the criticism "researchers no longer read papers as independent documents, but rather ones that required the context of its author" seems like one that applies to the entire Classification of Finite Simple Groups, not just to Aschbacher's contributions (and indeed more widely in modern mathematics, i.e. to projects like the Four Color Theorem). Looking again, perhaps the second and third paragraphs should be combined and streamlined? On the other hand, should some related material also be in the Classification of finite simple groups article? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 09:23, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That last point seems like a pretty strong one. Tito Omburo (talk) 21:07, 13 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It does read a little odd for what's supposed to be a biographical page about Aschbacher. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 03:46, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone satisfied with this? Tito Omburo (talk) 20:41, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's an improvement; thanks. I do wonder a little about calling his papers "very difficult to read", which kind of sounds like turning a judgment call into an absolute fact. There's a difference between having a reputation for impenetrability and being truly, objectively impenetrable. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 21:48, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, it is well-supported by the source. (It's nice to see this validated by well-researched summaries of secondary sources, rather than painful memories of graduate school.) Tito Omburo (talk) 22:04, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps a synonym like "challenging", "demanding", or "formidable" would seem less judgmental. –jacobolus (t) 22:11, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think a phrasing tweak of that nature could make the passage less judgmental and more informative. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 00:01, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I like the change in general, but agree with the spirit of some of the comments. I tried to rework the first sentence, but found it easier to rework the entire paragraph. What do y'all think about the following? While Aschbacher's ideas were held in esteem by the group theory community, his writing style drew complaints. Some commented that his proofs lacked explanations of very sophisticated counting arguments. The difficulty in reading his papers became more pronounced as the papers became longer, with even some of his coauthors finding their joint papers hard to read. The challenge in understanding Aschbacher's proofs was attributed not to a lack of ability, but rather to the complexity of the ideas he was able to produce. This was part of a general trend where researchers working on the Classification of Finite Simple Groups began to view papers as requiring the context of their authors, rather than as independent documents. As a result, responsibility of finding errors in the classification problem was up to the entire community of researchers rather than just peer-reviewers alone. The one substantive change is to identify the move towards attention to the authors of a paper as a broader trend, which the source also does (the Aschbacher paragraph is in the midst of a section talking about similar trends with Gorenstein and others). Russ Woodroofe (talk) 10:06, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what "requiring the context of their authors" is intended to mean here. —David Eppstein (talk) 11:48, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Perhaps better phrasing would replace view papers as requiring the context of their authors, rather than as independent documents with view papers as being reliable because of the reputation of their authors and their previous work, rather than as self-contained documents? Russ Woodroofe (talk) 12:01, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is much clearer, thanks! —David Eppstein (talk) 12:33, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and put my suggested paragraph (with modification after comment of David Eppstein) in the article. If I have misread the opinions here, then please feel free to modify or revert. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 12:18, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Examples in Bayes' theorem

[edit]

The Bayes' theorem article has a lengthy section of "Examples" that includes no sources and is written in a rather textbook-style manner. Contrast it with Pythagorean theorem, for instance, which doesn't do anything one would call an "example" until the passage about Pythagorean triples. It's not exactly the same situation, of course, since the cornucopia of different proofs is a much bigger deal for the Pythagorean theorem, but even so, in that article we don't have a whole section where a ladder is leaned against a wall, a jogger crosses a field diagonally, etc. This seems like a situation that needs some work. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 05:14, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If including examples about how to plug numbers into the formula is a good idea here (and maybe it is), we should probably go to standard statistics books and use theirs. The current ones read rather like an enthusiastic Wikipedian made them up 20 years ago based on the general themes of the examples they remembered seeing in class. We can do better, I think. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 05:29, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The introduction to the article includes an example which is not discussed in the article and thus not sourced. I suggest concentrating on one good sourced example in the body of the article and summarizing it in the intro. Johnjbarton (talk) 14:33, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I like that idea. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 21:05, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And another thing: is CueMath (currently reference 25) a reliable source? It looks to be yet another EdTech company website, and the writing is not all that clear throughout. Maybe not the most objectionable page, but it does have the feel of a source plugged in because it was the first to come up in a Google search. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 05:35, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think tag these sections. There is no shortage of "real-world" illustrations in well-known textbooks (e.g. Berger). Tito Omburo (talk) 21:29, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've tagged the completely unreferenced section and marked several other passages more specifically. If anyone is fresh from teaching a semester of probability theory, those {{cn}} tags are good candidates to pick off. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 23:10, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is doing psychic damage to anyone you have just described. But fair. Tito Omburo (talk) 23:13, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lattice point

[edit]

Since 2004 (when it was created by @Charles Matthews:), Lattice point has been a redirect to Lattice (group). In my experience, it is frequently the case that the term "lattice point" specifically means a point of the integer lattice ⁠⁠ in ⁠⁠, rather than a point in some other (or a generic) lattice. My instinct was partially validated by looking at the incoming links to Lattice point; some of them (like from Gaussian integer, Equation, and Pi) clearly are about the specific lattice, but at least some others (e.g., from Unit cell) mean something more generic. Since this redirect has been there for more than 20 years, I thought I would get other opinions before boldly changing the target. --JBL (talk) 21:02, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think "lattice point" just refers to any point in a lattice, no? If one type of lattice is more commonly discussed than others, it might be a good idea to call it out specifically near the beginning of Lattice (group). More generally, Lattice (group) would in my opinion benefit from some amount of copyediting/rewriting with the goal of making it more accessible, following Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable. –jacobolus (t) 21:28, 23 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: "lattice point" is a term commonly used in crystallography - see for example Bravais lattice. There it is not always talking about something equivalent to the integer lattice: crystals are not always (from the point of view of their Euclidean geometry) of that type, but may be based on other three-dimensional lattices. The Eisenstein integers form an example from pure mathematics. So I would say the current redirection is the useful one. Charles Matthews (talk) 05:52, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the phrase "lattice point" is a perfectly good and used phrase for "element of a lattice". It is also a perfectly good and used term for specifically an element of the integer lattice Z^n. My concern is that the second usage is (I think) more common, and specifically that the usage of the redirect on Wikipedia is more strongly attached to the (more elementary) second use, whereas the target is the first use. This is perhaps complicated by the fact that sometimes a statement about meaning 2 is also valid for meaning 1. Here's a more systematic analysis of the 14 articles at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Lattice_point:
This (which I admit is partly subjective) reinforces my prior expectation that an editor who adds a WL to the phrase "lattice point" is probably expecting it to go to an article about points in Euclidean space with integer coordinates, not to an article about general lattices. I propose to change the target to Integer lattice and to adjust the text/link at the three articles where the redirect is being used with its current meaning. (FWIW I have also just created a redirect Integer lattice point.)
I also agree that the article Lattice (group) is way more technical, especially at the beginning, than it needs to be. --JBL (talk) 20:19, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think having lattice point go to integer lattice seems unjustifiably specific. There are many sources (e.g. Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups) which use the name "lattice point" to refer to points in all sorts of lattices. As a concrete data point, there are some 17k results on Google scholar for «"lattice point" hexagonal». If you want to go through every example of [[lattice point]] and change it to [[integer lattice point|lattice point]] where that seems the most relevant, I don't think anyone would complain though. –jacobolus (t) 07:22, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok I am not ecstatically happy about that solution but since no one else seems to be jumping up to agree with me, I have done it (at will leave Lattice point as a redirect at its current target). --JBL (talk) 17:52, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Asking for review of Bernoulli's method

[edit]

As the main contributor to Bernoulli's method, it seemed improper for me to assign rankings, so I asked for help with importance in the article's talk page last May, but got no response. Thought I should try and highlight it here. Appreciate any help. Basilelp (talk) 21:13, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One objective way to rate articles is to use the Rater which I applied. It compares the structure of the content to other articles and works well for Start/C/B. It doesn't say anything about the quality of the content itself and it does not address ranking which seems to be subjective. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:09, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that the article rankings are that important. You can pick whatever feels right to you, and if someone cares enough to be upset over that, they can change it. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 02:47, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is definitely allowed and acceptable to assign the ratings stub/start/C/B to articles you wrote yourself. Same for importance rankings. If anyone disagrees, they can change them, and as noted above ratings in general are not that important. But for the more advanced ratings (GA and FA) there are other procedures you have to go through. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:21, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I prefer to rate C, for lack of sources. Hopefully, I'm allowed to give some tags. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 09:59, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to agree. It's close to B but entire unsourced sections drop it down to C. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:22, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You should feel free to apply any rating from "Start" through "B" to articles you wrote yourself, trying to give your best fair assessment. If someone disagrees they can change it or start a discussion. After skimming through, I would rate article as a "B".... but the rating is pretty arbitrary and doesn't matter much. The main use I have for these ratings is that the set of articles with high view count and/or "priority" rating but low "quality" rating are an excellent place to look for high-impact articles to improve. If you want to get a little green badge or gold star, you have to do a bit more work to tick items off their respective checklists, but even those ratings are quite variable in practice and should not be taken to mean more than that one editor has listed an article for badging and another editor has reviewed it against the checklist (with a highly variable level of rigor). –jacobolus (t) 00:22, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Appreciate the feedback @Johnjbarton, @Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction, @David Eppstein, @Dedhert.Jr, and @Jacobolus. I have only ever written one article for Wikipedia and I wanted to make sure that I was trying to follow the guidelines and check all the boxes. Hadn't realized I could add importance/ranking myself and I was unaware of Rater. My apologies for my ignorance.
@Dedhert.Jr I'm not sure what you mean being being allowed to give tags. Have you been blocked from making edits? Also, @David Eppstein for the sections that don't have sources like Example and Code, do they need to have sources? I just did the math, made the graphs, and wrote the code so should I to cite myself? Maybe I'm missing something. Perhaps this is something that can be followed-up on the Talk:Bernoulli's method page. Basilelp (talk) 19:02, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No the example doesn’t need a source (though if you can find a similar published example it doesn’t hurt to link one). Personally I’d skip the long docstring and consider writing pseudocode; the point of wikipedia articles isn’t to provide production-ready code snippets, and I try to minimize extraneous/distracting components where possible. YMMV. –jacobolus (t) 19:20, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Have you been blocked from making edits?" No. Otherwise, I cou— Dedhert.Jr (talk) 03:14, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I remember when such a gag would end with NO CARRIER ! —Tamfang (talk) 04:52, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Citation spam

[edit]

After noticing that a very recent journal article without any citation add been added the the Poisson distribution article by the recently created account @DoctorThere, I investigated a bit a so that this article has recently been spammed across various wikis by legitimate-looking accounts with similar names (e.g, CarlosSantana95 and MadameButterfly96). To me that (strongly) suggests citation spam. Should I be bold and just remove any mention of Guerriero and Tallini's article from all wikis? Malparti (talk) 13:05, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It could be that the citations are common because a newer paper reference it and so several experts in multiple wikis are adding it because of recently see it. Or there may be some other reason. Just because two people in a group of users have two numbers at the end of their username does not mean the whole group or even two people in the group are the same person. I think it is a bit of an overreaction, but if the cited material in the other wikis do not add to the respective wikis then the editors of those wikis will probably remove it. I do admit that adding a citation of an article that is over 10 years old to an introductory topic article is a bit suspicious. EulerianTrail (talk) 16:45, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@EulerianTrail I don't think we're talking about the same article. I am talking about https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0259215, which was published less than three month ago. The article in question was published in a "respectable-but-not-outstanding" journal (Q1 in physics and astronomy; Q2 in every other discipline). As far I as I am concerned, I really can't see the point of this article, but that's of course subjective (please feel free to read the article). What's not subjective, however, is that there does not seem to have been any significant news coverage for this article. In fact, I cannot find any relevant mention of it anywhere except on Wikipedia (that is, excluding automated listings from libraries).
I have a hard time believing that this type of article can get 18 independent citations on Wikipedia within such a short time-window. Malparti (talk) 18:57, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In general, additions of newly published uncited papers to multiple articles by single-purpose accounts are usually WP:REFSPAM and should be removed. This is especially true for articles on topics that have a huge literature ("About 1,340,000 results" on Google Scholar for "Poisson distribution") for which new publications are unlikely to stand out above the rest and for which textbook sources are usually preferable. This looks superficially like a typical case. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:02, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Google Scholar reports 0 citations of this article. So the references could also be removed under WP:TOOSOON. If you are willing and able, please delete these citations. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 19:05, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@EulerianTrail, some concrete data. I'm going to go through every article on every wiki, because that would eat up my whole evening, but feel free to complete the list:
I am going to request a checkuser and ask for all these accounts to be banned + make sure that this article is removed from all wikis. I also saw that one of these authors has other unremarkable articles that are cited on Wikipedia. Malparti (talk) 19:18, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PS: thanks @David Eppstein and @Quantling for your input, I saw it as I was typing this message. Malparti (talk) 19:18, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have started a sockpuppet investigation: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Aftershock81. Please add to it if you think I missed some socks. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:38, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a ton. I'll try to take some to see if I can find any other one before going to bed. Malparti (talk) 20:40, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The material in the Poisson distribution article is textbook stuff (the confidence interval for the mean of a Poisson random variable). Citing a recent journal article for that would be odd in any circumstance. (The other source in that paragraph literally is a textbook.) This does look and smell like WP:REFSPAM. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 19:54, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I thought you were referring to a different article that I saw DoctorThree cite. But it now seems a lot more likely that the actions by the user(s) was inappropriate. I also highly doubt this broad number of citations in wiki articles without there being scholarly publications and I do not think it is even being widely discussed outside of Wikipedia. I strongly suspect this to be a violation of WP:OR. EulerianTrail (talk) 20:32, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, I thought you were thinking about the wrong article — by the way, what is that article? Anything cited by DoctorThere is kinda suspicious now. Also, this is a violation of WP:CITESPAM and WP:SOCK; not WP:OR. Cheers, Malparti (talk) 20:50, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was this one: Comparison of Confidence Intervals for the Poisson Mean: Some New Aspects | REVSTAT-Statistical Journal
Looking at the universities of the article authors, there are probably better sources to use. It is very suspicious to use such an obscure paper from such a low-ranking university.
I stated WP:OR because I suspect that DoctorThere is citing his or her own papers. Yes, I agree with WP:CITESPAM and WP:SOCK. EulerianTrail (talk) 01:05, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@EulerianTrail I see that despite having many contributions, you are relatively new on Wikipedia (since your account was created less than three months ago). Hence my insistence — because I think it is important that people who contribute a lot have a good understanding of the policies. I hope I won't sound patronizing.
Of course, I also think that DoctorThere is citing their own paper. I even have my thought as to their precise identity. However, that does not make it WP:OR: "On Wikipedia, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists"; the problem here is not that DoctorThere has been adding statements for which not reliable source exist. The problem is that they have [presumably] been (1) spamming their own work by citing it where it's not needed and/or where better sources exist; and (2) using multiple accounts.
Also, don't judge the quality of a work mainly by the affiliation of its author(s). Sure, that's often a good proxy; but in that case the ranking of the journal where the work got published and who is citing the work are much better ones. Malparti (talk) 06:42, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Malparti thank you for clarifying the difference. I agree that the ranking of the journal is often a better measure. EulerianTrail (talk) 13:16, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have a slightly off-topic aside: has anyone ever engaged a would-be citation spammer with a polite message and ended up converting them to make neutral non-promotional contributions? If so, is there any recommended strategy for doing that? –jacobolus (t) 02:41, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In most cases of citation spamming that I came across, I found the quality of the articles being spammed low enough to make me not want the authors to contribute to Wikipedia... Would you want Gagniuc to be out there writing math articles? ;) Malparti (talk) 06:14, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well for example, special:diff/1307815130 just added a 2024 paper to Arctangent series (a.k.a. Gregory's series). My speculation is that the new account adding this is one of the authors of the paper, and in any event it is probably undue weight to include here, but it's plausible that the person knows enough about this or related topics to add material summarizing previous secondary sources. –jacobolus (t) 07:04, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"it's plausible that the person knows enough about this or related topics to add material summarizing previous secondary sources." → Yes, I agree. But in that case the spam is not obvious: it is different to add a new result that you've found to Wikipedia — and therefore cite yourself — versus to add several citations to your work to support basic statements. In the former case, I would talk about bad judgment and undue weight, and would think that their might be hope that the person is driven by good motives and able to become a good contributor. In the latter, I wouldn't waste my time... Malparti (talk) 08:35, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

S and L spaces

[edit]

To me, it seems that the topic of S and L spaces likely satisfies GNG. There are several well-known survey articles about S and L and the two existence problems were worked on by many mathematicians for decades. Apparently, there was an article about it at one time, and from what I can tell by searching it was troubled by behavioral issues. I can't find a deletion discussion but maybe I am missing an obvious way of locating one. Can anyone point me to it or let me know what went on there? ByVarying | talk 18:50, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that there was such an article created by User:Vujkovica brdo, who was banned for using several sockpuppet accounts (you can read more at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vujkovica brdo/Archive. There was no deletion discussion. You should feel free to make a new article at that title. –jacobolus (t) 19:05, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Although it was not the reason for deletion, the deleted version was also unduly focused on Todorčević (typically for Vb's socks). Everyone else's contributions are mentioned in the passive voice and third person, until we get to a paragraph that names and links Todorčević three times. The remainder of the article continues to credit Todorčević for Moore's resolution of the question. So I don't think this would be a good starting point for a new article; we need something more neutral in its coverage. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:01, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Aside: it seems likely that Vb, whose changes to Stevo Todorčević were reverted here at English Wikipedia for seeming promotional ("Stevo's talent was a miracle", etc.), has managed (as an IP editor) to insert them at simple:Stevo Todorčević, where they seem even less appropriate. I don't know if anyone from WPM here pays attention to the content on Simple English Wikipedia. –jacobolus (t) 19:15, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lead sentence of Beck's monadicity theorem

[edit]

I would like to change the reference in the lead sentence of Beck's monadicity theorem from Beck (2003) to Beck (2025). However, here is the reference that supports the change: Jon Beck's untitled manuscript containing the "tripleability theorem" (i.e. the monadicity theorem). I've heard that mathoverflow cannot be used as a reference, so do I need a different reference when changing the lead sentence? --SilverMatsu (talk) 03:24, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since the theorem does not appear in the 2003 reprint of Beck's thesis, you can remove it. Moreover, the 2025 reprint of the 1968 paper contains a preface that gives a bit of historical context (and credits Nathanael Arkorand for his work in tracking down the original paper). So in my opinion there is not problem in changing the reference. Malparti (talk) 17:34, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree: you don't need a MO reference to support the change, the 2025 publication is itself a reliable source. --JBL (talk) 00:41, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your responses. I changed the reference. --SilverMatsu (talk) 01:11, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Add: I add the 2025 publication to Jonathan Mock Beck's article.--SilverMatsu (talk) 04:24, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, does the -categorical version of Beck's monadicity theorem fall within the topic of this article? Also, this theorem is also known as the Barr-Beck theorem, so redirect the Barr-Beck theorem to Beck's monadicity theorem?

Ref:Lurie, Jacob. "Higher Algebra (Theorem 4.7.3.5)" (PDF).;Riehl, Emily; Verity, Dominic (2016). "Homotopy coherent adjunctions and the formal theory of monads". Advances in Mathematics. 286: 802–888. arXiv:1310.8279. doi:10.1016/j.aim.2015.09.011.

--SilverMatsu (talk) 10:05, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Spectral Deferred Correction Method

[edit]

I would appreciate another set of eyes on this draft, preferably belonging to someone who still knows higher mathematics. (There are two reasons why someone might not know higher mathematics. They may not have learned it in college, the larger group, or they may have learned it and forgotten it. I belong to the latter group.) It appears to me that this draft should be declined because it doesn't refer to third parties who have discussed the method, or the papers by the authors about the method. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:15, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would decline. It reads like it was written by AI, and doesn't offer much clarity on the method. I think it's notable, and wouldn't object to an article on general grounds, but this doesn't seem to be fleshed out enough. Tito Omburo (talk) 21:33, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I will decline it. Is there any specific evidence that it was written by artificial intelligence, or is that your general assessment (knowing that mathematicians always have logical reasons, since mathematics is based on logic)? Robert McClenon (talk) 00:51, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When one reads a lot of AI generated prose, one gets a feeling for these things. In this case (in addition to the "feeling") it's pretty obvious: correct grammar throughout, and good ascii formatting, but not properly rendered into Wiki syntax. Ironically, I suggested this to GPT 5, and it gave a better summary than this stub, suggesting that perhaps the problem isn't the use of AI per se, but the inferior use of AI. Tito Omburo (talk) 01:02, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this is necessarily AI generated, but it is poorly formatted as a Wikipedia article. –jacobolus (t) 04:46, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Besides the formatting errors, the excessive use of lists is a clear characteristic of AI output. Tercer (talk) 18:22, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Continued fractions

[edit]

Hey, could someone assist me in distinguishing the difference between continued fractions and series expansions? waddie96 ★ (talk) 12:02, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both are limits of sequences. A continued fraction is a limit of a sequence of fractions and a series is a limit of a sequence of partial sums. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:11, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! waddie96 ★ (talk) 18:00, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Mathematics of Metamathematics

[edit]

There is a book by Helena Rasiowa and Roman Sikorski under the title as above (a link to its review in the Journal of Symbolic Logic). It has no entry in Wikipedia. I wonder if it has enough prominence to have one. Any opinions? Alx-pl (talk) 11:24, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe include it in Metamathematics § Further reading if it is significant enough? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:34, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Google scholar lists it has having been cited more than 1000 times, so that contributes to its notability. Interestingly, Google scholar lists a single author only: H. Rasiowa. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 15:14, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are three more reviews at [1], Zbl 0122.24311, and MR 0163850. To me, that's enough to make it notable as a book (under WP:NBOOK #1 and WP:GNG) despite the routine nature of having a review in Zbl and MR. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:04, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yet again

[edit]

I guess most of the people involved were tagged, but just in case — from Reflections on Wikipedia Policies:

"First, I am in no way (absolutely not) connected with any of the individuals involved in the discussions I am about to mention."

Malparti (talk) 16:38, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]