Hi Mr. Hardy-- I saw that you wrote an article on logistic curves. I'm trying to understand the difference between these 2 equations both of which are supposed to be s-curves (one being sigmoid).
Can somebody pls tell me what the difference is between these 2 s-curve equations? 1 / (1 + exp(a1x ^a2) ) or 1-exp(-c*x^d)
I am not a mathematician so I would appreciate a layman's explanation. Thank you for your help!
This question is kind of irrelevant, but just out of curiosity: why did you change the redirect at Lobachevsky plane from upper to Upper? As I understand it, due to limitations in Wikimedia, all articles start with a capital letter. -- Tob 08:36, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I understand your concerns, but my concern is that the period is very close to \cdot, which is confusing when thrown at the end of a formula. The typographical features of web browsers are rather lacking.—Kbolino 00:03, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
I posted the following on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Golden Mean:
Please don't merge or redirect: I agree that this article needs substantial improvement. However, most of it deals with the philosophical meaning of golden mean (essentially not too much, not too little), which has nothing to do with the mathematical subject of the golden ratio article; therefore, it should not be merged with that article. The confusion, which is not of our making, is that the outside world uses golden mean ambiguously: sometimes in its philosophical sense (above); other times as a synonym for the golden ratio. Golden ratio, on the other hand, is unambibuous: it refers only to the subject of the golden ratio article, which is another reason that the articles should not be merged. The Wikified solution for dealing an ambiguous term is disambiguation, and that is part of the solution for this article. Indeed Michael Hardy, who made the first post on this page (does that mean he is the one who nominated the article for deletion?) raised much the same point in a comment following his original post. The rest of the solution is (1) to delete from this article all discussion of material that is treated in the golden ratio article (and treated much better there), with an appropriate cross-reference on this page to golden ratio as another meaning of golden mean; and (2) to edit what is left of this article, dealing solely with the philosophical meaning, to improve its quality. Finell 10:49, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
The voting is running heavily for merging the 2 articles, which I thing would be a big mistake: the other (nonmathematical) meaning of golden mean deserves its own treatment in Wikipedia, albeit a better one than the current Golden Mean article. The other meaning has no place in the Golden ratio article. What do you think? Finell 12:44, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Is it wikipedia policy to scatter user-instruction into the edit log of the page? I thought that was what the "discussion" page was for, if not the "user talk" pages, but call me a "newbie" indeed if I was woefully mistaken. Furthermore, if it is a concern that "newbies" would put underbars into the visible portion of a link, does this not suggest that instead of making up yet another style rule for the humans to slavishly obey, one should simply reprogram the wikipedia to not produce the underscores that it doesn't need in the first place? mdf 17:40, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi Michael -- I see what you mean -- it hadn't occurred to me that mathematics and education overlap in mathematics education -- I was just thinking that all meanings of constructivism are created equal and there seemed to be no reason to single out education from the others. These warnings shouldn't be too long, though, I think -- is my shortened version of your warning OK?
But those other cases are not the ones causing the confusion. People have kept inserting stuff about Piaget and the like into the article under the mistaken impression that that's what it's supposed to be about. Michael Hardy 00:47, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Hello Michael. I accidentally uploaded the file Image:Default Title d.ogg, with a wrong title. This same file was then reuploaded with its correct title, as indicated in the image's page. Could you please delete it? —AugPi 19:30, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Greetings. In fact, friendly greetings.
Do you know the Uncle Remus story of the Tar Baby? You asked mathematicians to get in on the discussion about the Halmos section of the birthday paradox, so I got involved. But now I feel stuck in it beyond my real interest. Rather than continue to watch, talk, and edit, I'm going to back away. If you still have an interest, you'll need to grapple with the tar baby yourself. I'll watch your talk page if you want to reply. Best of luck! :-) --KSmrqT 02:05, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi, Michael. Thanks for fixing the capitalization in the Posidonius article. --Tregonsee 17:58, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi Michael. I promised a while ago to help maintaining lists of math topics. I could update them in the same manner as I do for now with the list of mathematical topics, but that would require too much oversight, as there are hundreds of math lists to take care of.
What I did so far, I tried an experiment. I listed at Talk:list of probability topics some articles missing from the List of probability topics. One could then add them to the List of probability topics by hand.
One can update that list on the talk page on demand, by clicking on a link. I also put there an editable list of categories to be searched for probability articles.
Anyway, wonder if you can take a look there and let me know what you think. This approach is not fully automatic, but I could extend it to every single math list we have in here, as long as a human would be willing to do part of the work. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:51, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
User 161.184.8.128 has recently vandalized several math pages. I dont know how to sort this out, but I guess you do. R.e.b. 16:23, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I removed "almost surely" because it added an uncertainty that doesn't exist: an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters *will* begin to produce every work *possible* immediately. Finding Hamlet among the infinite array of monkeys, though -- that would be a little trickier... :) -- Seth Ilys 15:57, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi Michael - I notice that there is an article List of probability distributions which apparently duplicates the list in probability distribution. I have added a number of probability distributions to the latter, but I was not aware of the former. Do you have an objection to removing the duplicate list in probability distribution and replacing it with a link to the list? PAR 22:00, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree that it's not good to have the same thing in two places. I just edited probability distribution, and I don't really want to do it again in list of probability distributions. (Fisher's z and the beta prime were in the wrong places.) Maybe we should turn the list of probability distributions into a simple list with no text. EricK 17:56, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi Michael. I realised it was a featured list candidate, so I won't be changing my vote. I believe that it is a very useful page, and perhaps is worth featuring somehow. But, I think it doesn't really fit into what the featured lists seem to be -- lists for reference purposes where the information is there on the page, rather than lists of links to other articles. I would not say that this list of lists could never become suitable to be a featured list, but I don't think it really fits at this point in time. Cheers, Ben Cairns 12:55, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Hello Michael. I wrongly put my vote (mild support with some precautions) in the discussion section instead in the voting section where it should have been. The remarks I left there are meant as a suggestion to improve the overall structure of the list (and not as an argument against the featured list). Concerning the comments made there: As I have now seen the "List of wave topics" does not yet have an entry "Maxwells' equation". On the other hand "Maxwell's equation" appears in the "List of partial differential equations" (under Named equations) and the rather large "List of equations". This means that the topic "Maxwell's equations" is not really covered by the existing set of lists inside "Mathematical physics" (whose coverage seems too narrow). One could add a "List of fundamental equations in mathematical physics" there where Maxwell' equation would fit well together with other equations (Einstein-, Schrödinger, maybe Navier-Stokes) from Mathematical physics. At least in this section the "List of list of mathematical topics" does not seem to be in the desired "stable (featured) state". --212.18.24.11 16:12, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Please see and comment on Talk:Quantum indeterminacy#Dispute status of this article. Thanks --CSTAR 18:08, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
As regards 68.238.97.2 and his comments at this page, I am absolutely convinced you are wasting your time by trying to convince them that something they won't believe is true. Mathematical discussion of this topic is fruitless when one side of the argument feels free to impose unique limitations on basic definitions of mathematical constructs.
Just a thought. Mallocks 14:45, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
At scale space you created one or more links to scale. Since scale is (as you would of course expect) a disambiguation page, it would be better to link to one of the articles listed on that page. Michael Hardy 23:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Michael, just a note to tip you the wink. At present this nomination is in the balance. However, Bjcairns, Stevenj and OpenToppedBus, for example, have all made points that could be looked at. If you could deal with some of these, it will be much easier to promote the list. Kind regards, jguk 12:57, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
I'd be interested in a Maths Wikireader! What's the chance of getting one of these off the ground? The second thing is... I just don't get present value... could you explain this to me? Cheers Michael :-) BTW, I really like your list of list of math topics. - Ta bu shi da yu 00:23, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
An article that you've edited before (Henry the Navigator) is nominated for Biography Collaboration of the Week. If you want go there and vote. Thanks. Gameiro 20:44, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi Michael. I think you are overreacting on Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of lists of mathematical topics. It seems to me that all Cloveius did is to move his comments to a more logical place (the timestamp wasn't changed). Cheers, Jitse Niesen (talk) 21:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
In central limit theorem, I think "Let Xn be a sequence of independent random variables defined on the same probability space (and not necessarily independent)" is unclear. --Henrygb 21:09, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
In the recent past you have laid hands on "Proof that 0.999... equals 1". By one of my typically wandering paths of browsing through Wikipedia, I came across the page, read it, and gagged. (Comments on the talk page.) Then I boldly rewrote the whole text to make any handwaving either explicit or more tolerably subtle, and to better serve the likely audience. I left the external references alone, though I don't much like any of them. Peer review can be a Good Thing, and I'd appreciate it if you'd have a look. I know it's not as sexy a topic as, say, de Rham cohomology or Calabi-Yau manifold, but the general public deserves an honest treatment of fundamentals, and it seems like the sort of thing that might fall within your interests. --KSmrqT 07:10, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Are you sure? OK, I'm only 49, but back in the 1920s Fowler criticised the use of the stop in abbreviations such as "Mrs.", and I've certainly seen "Mr", "Dr", "Mrs", etc., in books from the late nointeenth century. My understanding was that use of stops was somewhat haphazard until the last couple of centuries, gradually settling down into the current standards. I'm no expert on the history of punctuation, though, so any sources you can offer would be gratefully received and read with interest. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Mr. Hardy! Thank you so much for correcting my capitalization. There is no substitute for a good editor. From now on I will use External links and Extent and duration and in general only capitalize the first word of a title. I will also correct any I see done wrong. Good day to you.Dave 01:59, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Hello Michael, re your rerouting our trade mark registered method to "integration" I accept your intentions were good, but it is like saying that the airline British Airways must be written British airways or Aer Lingus written Aer lingus just for grammatical correctness sake.
Please accept our recorrecting our organisation's method.
Greetings. Osioni 12:33, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Hello. The merge of articles is disputed. I much appreciate your opnion, thanks. --Mateusc 02:16, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi Michael - keep your eye on infrared -- it was vandalized by User:219.88.100.31... I discovered this while following his trail. Best regards Bryan 04:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
>>Simiarly, in the link to golden ratio, the initial "g" should not be capitalized in the middle of a sentence; "Golden" is not a person after whom the ratio is named. Michael Hardy 19:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
And just to think, all this time I thought it was named after the home of Coors Beer (Golden, Colorado). --AustinKnight 19:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, the "B" in "Beer" should not be capitalized, since the official name of the product is "Coors". PAR 22:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm convinced...but tell that to Wikipedia: Beer --AustinKnight 22:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
The Pope as you may know is Bishop of Rome. The conclave (i.e. cardinal-electors) would have to grant dispensation from the rule of celibacy in the case of electing a married man, because it will be required of this layman that he accept ordination (the sacrament of Holy Orders) as deacon, priest, and bishop. The rule of celibacy was created by the Church and therefore it can be dispensed from in the case of an individual, a class of persons, or in entirety.
The rules that person be male, baptized, and profess the faith could not be dispensed from as the Church holds that these rules have divine authorship. patsw 21:11, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually the claim that a person's gender is non-dispensable is disputed by many theologians and religious experts including many at senior level in the Church privately. Baptism and a profession of state is however unabiguously mandatory. The methodology of both however has evolved within the Church over millennia. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 22:38, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I've tons of pics of the "University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus." You an alumus, or -i?--Gephart 03:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
If Federal judge (United States) is how people are likely to search, it can be accomplished with a redirect, yes? Cheers! BD2412 T 00:15, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Would you be interested in joining my proposed WikiProject, WikiProject Tunings, Temperaments, and Scales? —Keenan Pepper 18:43, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
I liked very much your changes. I wonder if you'd like "advocacy" though, instead of "advocation" - a rare word. Also I am not sure what "along with her allegedly cult-like actions and other sources" means - perhaps we should change "sources" to "oddities." Also no one notices or objects to the "philosophy"'s depending on absolute causality, while we know there's QM uncertainty and also chaos in many classical systems. I am dueling in the area of intelligent design, and would prefer not to generate changes that almost overlap with yours in "Objectivism". So for now I leave it to you. Carrionluggage 05:05, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi Michael, thanx for the advice, I'll try to correct the pages anyway, can I have your opinion about that deletion mark that was on Smallville opening credits history? please tell me that Extraordinary Machine girl is crazy The OC article also has a history of opening credits...
Hi Michael, thanx for the advice, I'll try to correct the pages anyway, can I have your opinion about that deletion mark that was on Opening credits history of Smallville? please tell me that Extraordinary Machine girl is crazy please add anythin you can do to support me in this cause to that article's discussion The OC article also has a history of opening credits...
--Charlie144 07:14, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
I've started the sum of normal distributions article. Could you please assist me in my attemt to prove that the sum of independent Gaussian distributions also i Gaussian? Thanks in advance. --Fredrik Orderud 20:00, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Normally an unambiguous article name, such as Constructivism (mathematics), should not need to be disambiguated. You are overreacting about such a notice being crucial for this article, as two anonymous editors contributing two learning theory-related edits over a span of eight months is barely significant. Especially considering one of those two edits was made when the disambiguation notice was present, so it evidently isn't effective. In any case the current notice is clearer and more useful than the one I removed. Sorry for the trouble.—jiy (talk) 21:47, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
There is a dispute over whether Noahide Laws should be included in this category, anyone with an opinion is asked to express it here: Talk:Noahide_Laws#Jewish_Christian_topics
Greetings. You fixed a couple of group links recently so they didn't go through disambiguation pages. (Thanks.) It made me wonder how many of these might be out there, and if there is a bot to flag them. No automatic bookkeeping can prevent them nor remove them, but some help spotting them would be nice. Do you know of anything, or should we tempt Oleg? --KSmrqT 20:28, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your message on Astrogation.
Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so articles that appear to be dictionary entries (one- or two-line articles) are not generally eligible to be on the site. If you are knowledgable about the subject of Astrogation, might I suggest that you add to it and remove the dicdef tag? Stifle 20:45, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
My guess is that our anonymous visitor is a student, possibly in high school or early undergrad, probably male, who has had lots of sets thrown at him but never wondered how many more fanciful ones he could create himself. I suspect that he labors under the impression that the real numbers are somehow the maximal ordered extension of the rationals. Possibly someone has told him that the reals "fill in all the gaps", and that there is no more room to do so. Of course, this is nonsense, since you can take any ordered set X and insert at least a bunch of successors by taking the order product of X with 2. This construction would appear in the first week of an undergraduate class on order theory, if there were such a thing. A wonder what you think about that, as an educator: a class not on set theory, not on topology, but on less-than?
Anyway, I think if he can be made to understand that his vision of the real numbers makes no sense, and our definition does, he might accept our definition. Melchoir 00:02, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi Michael. I replied at talk:discrete random variable. But now I want to ask about something else. Can you please look at Talk:Correlation and the the diff of this revert? Somebody claims in there that a random variable cannot be correlated to another random variable. I think that this is obviously wrong, but you are the expert in that kind of stuff. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:01, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
On the talk page, I've made a comment about your merger suggestion. If you would like to reply when you get time, I'd appreciate it. If not, I'll remove the tag in a week or so if there aren't any more comments. --W.marsh 01:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for merging Method of differences with Telescoping series. I feel very guilty about putting the merge tag up, as I always hate it when people just slap a tag on an article while they can do the work themselves, but it is good to see that somebody has taken care of it. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 01:03, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Hello. You have edited Bayes' theorem in the past. There is at present an edit conflict in Bayes' theorem concerning examples. Shall we have an example about cookies or an example about a medical test? I wonder if you care to weigh in on this question. If not, no problem. Please respond, if you choose to do so, at talk:Bayes' theorem. Regards, Wile E. Heresiarch 18:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Why did you remove the references to physics and engineering from the first line of Laplace transform? -- Metacomet 04:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
You're good at stats, right? Inquiring minds need you help at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Mathematics#Statistics_Question linas 17:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
You will see in my talk (the section above your edit) that this was already brought to my attention. I can see that linking to continuous probability distribution is a better choice, but (and my reasoning for my edit) is that the continuous probability distribution is a continuous function. I have created a talk section about this at Talk:Continuity to avoid mistakes like this in the future. I think you will agreee that the final outcome is a better wikilink in the article = a better Wikipedia. I have no idea what "knee-jerk" meant in your comment. Who's knee was jerking?--Commander Keane 20:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Recently, an anonymous user changed "converges uniformly" to just plain "converges" on Riesz–Fischer theorem [1]. I think that it should be uniformly continuous, but I don't have my reference text with me. Do you know which is correct? Thanks. NatusRoma 04:08, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
The anonymous editor is right; "converges uniformly" is completely wrong in this case. And the anonymous editor did NOT change "converges uniformly" to just plain "converges". Rather, he or she changed it to "converges in L2, which is different not only from uniform convergence, but also from pointwise convergence and from almost-everywhere convergence. Michael Hardy 19:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Just a quick question: if I wanted to reword method of differences into the verb of telescoping series, would it be called telescoping? I would like to know before I attempt to rewrite the article slightly. Thanks in advance. x42bn6 Talk 13:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I have no idea what that means. Michael Hardy 19:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, I think I see what you mean. Certainly telescope is used as a verb in this context. One may say, "This sum can be evaluated quickly because it telescopes", or the like. Michael Hardy 19:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Proposed renaming and vote. :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I do not have an email address for Mr. Seigenthaler. The only contact I have had from him, as far as I can recall, was by telephone in early October, and then of course we appeared in a couple of interviews together during the height of media interest in his story. --Jimbo Wales 12:25, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
please see my comment and Steve's question --Bob K 21:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I noticed (on Jimbo's talk page) that you were looking for Siegenthaler's email address. I was looking for it too (I wanted to give him a piece of my mind). I couldn't find it, but I did find the email address for his project, the First Amendment Center. I wrote my message to the following address: bbuchanan@freedomforum.org This is the address of the Managing Editor of the Center. I must tell you, I received a very rude response to my reasonably polite email. --Mb1000 01:06, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
No, unfortunatly. It was by the managing editor. But at least I got it off my chest! --Mb1000 01:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
The section on Euler's proof mentions at the end that the "equation" seems odd to modern eyes, et cetera. I've seen this kind of statement in regards to Euler and other less rigorous mathematicians before, and it always annoys me. The meaning of the "equation" is perfectly evident to me; of course we'll never know for sure exactly what he meant, but how could he have meant anything other than our modern day, rigorous equivalent? The article then says that the proof can be slightly altered to conform to modern standards of rigor. Wouldn't that just amount to replacing all the infinites with Xs and taking the limit as X approaches infinity? This is almost the only useful interpretation of the infinity symbol, and the presence of the unqualified symbol naturally suggests replacing it with a limit. Why are proofs like this considered so drastically different than our modern ones? --Monguin61 22:23, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Not in this, involving "ln(ln(+∞))". The limit would merely be ∞, but what the paragraph says Euler almost certainly meant is something other than that.
That is nonsense. There are many interpretations that are useful. You've just mentioned one of them, and what the article says Euler almost certainly meant is another one.
Did you sleep through the whole 19th century? Notice, for example, the reasons why we distingish between pointwise convergence and uniform convergence, etc. Michael Hardy 00:12, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Please describe your edit to List of numbers. Georgia guy 00:32, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Michael Hardy 00:36, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
... you removed both your own comment and my own. Could I ask why? - Ta bu shi da yu 03:38, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Please explain why your edit to Derivative (which I reverted) makes sense. I thought a template is a simplified version. Georgia guy 23:56, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Or any registered user can edit Briaboru 00:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)BriaboruBriaboru 00:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi Michael. Thank you for this edit at List of mathematics articles (A-C). I had totally forgotten about doing the replacements in there after I did the move. Fixed now everywhere. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:00, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Howdy, Thanks for your correction in Rankit, well spotted. --Hansnesse 01:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
It seems that hatnotes like the ((otheruses)) should not be subst'd (or otherwise changed to text) to keep uniformity of appearance. If you need to change the text, you should probably use ((dablink)) so at least the formatting is preserved. --AySz88^-^ 00:04, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Hello Michael Hardy, as you know there is some uncertainty about the distinction between the terms multiple testing and multiple comparisons [2]. I thought you might know of some other mathematics or statistics contributors who could weigh in with their opinions on the matter. Thanks Debivort 05:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
Why did you remove the merge template? --Dystopos 04:27, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm clueless about math, but if the golden spiral is not the same as the golden ratio, then it should not redirect to golden ratio. --Anittas 00:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi, Michael; thank you for scouring my user page. I was aware that I had left that sentence hanging; sadly, I have the tendancy to, oftentimes, stop thinking of words in the middle of a monologue; a sort of super-linguistic music takes their place. Such was the reason why I paused my writing of my criticism of pornography; dozens of ideas entered my mind, and my words chimed together, to make a sort of campanic drone. I have written something there as a stopgap, although it expresses my glut of ideals badly.
When it comes to Wikipedia, I would define unilateralism as unreasonably acting on personal vindiction, when consensus-led discussion is what is desirable. An example of such a thing was the frankly logic-defying and sophmorically-justified deletion of people's self-identifying userboxes. Unilateralism is vigilante justice, where people do not get to voice opposition because someone higher up on this supposedly egalitarian realm felt it justified. (Naturally, it is fine to delete vandalism on sight, for the sake of this encyclopædia. Not many of us can argue against that. But, sadly, it seems that the goalposts of what constitutes sabotage have been moved wide and far, on the back of personal whimsies and half-baked ideals. For the main part, I liked your fellow; I thought that he was suave but rational when it came to the presentation of much of his case. On top of this, I have enjoyed leisurely reading his mathematical contributions to the encyclopædia, as sad as that may sound. (I am of the Erdös school of thought when it comes to the beauty of math.) However, there are, at the minute, far too many lacunæ in his appeal for me to support it. Although I have voted against those who do not have a considerable enough track record to compare their ideals with, experience should not make people beyond reproach. I found curious that, in his responses, M. Matthews both rejected centralism and communitarianism, but did not propose any intemediary between the two. The opposite of group review, naturally, is individual review. Also, M. Matthews essentially agreed with the broad and rather dangerous concept of 'Ignore All Rules;' he said that it was all well and good for one to 'stick [one's] neck out,' which is rather vague, giving little idea as to how unilateral he thinks is acceptable.
Do not mistake me, though; this was not my primary reason for posing opposition. I think that, if we can say that Wikipedia has any pretence of equality, there have to be checks and balances on those who, in quite a sense, 'rule;' otherwise, we are doing nothing but building a stagnant elected dictatorship. I also disliked the harsh deflection of a reasonable question; to me, how Charles reacted to that user was assuming bad faith, an ad hominem attack, and I don't believe in what appeared to be demeaning a fellow Wikipedian rather than discussing their concerns. I agree with his decision to keep stumm over his own ideologies; that is his own darnèd business. However, his opinion on checks and balances on arbiters is severely relevant. I don't appreciate ochlocracy; I cannot support slamming people down as a way to win an argument.
Now, onto more pleasurable things: amateur linguistics and the word, one's, and why that is grammatically correct, whereas 'it's' as a genitive is not. In a perfect world, perhaps we would all be speaking a totally analytical language with no quirks whatsoever. But, we have English, the hotel bedsheet that bears the musks and stains of those who have slept on it; and 'one's', like so many other bizarre counter-rules in English, can be blamed on French, which is not as illogical as mooted, but does pass off some weirdnesses as rules. You probably know many of the composites of this explanation, but I am a completist: in Anglo-Saxon, the word 'man' referred not only to a human being, but it served as the indefinite subject pronoun, a space, (sadly, in my own opinion,) you takes up to-day. (Those who say that words such as mankind are sexist should go learn something.) The use of 'man' as 'human' and as an indefinite lasted long into Middle English: if you look at Chaucer, where we would use one and no one, man and no man are used every time that I can recall it. For example, (excuse me if I misquote:)
The millere[...] nolde avalen neither hood ne hat, Ne abyde no man for his courtesy.
The genitive of man, since it is a defective pronoun and is actually a noun, is 'man's'. (The gen. in those days would have been mannes.) After Guillaume le Bâtard took the throne, French influence onto English increased considerably, and 'man' started to be replaced by 'on,' the corresponding French indefinite subject pronoun that was a clipping of the word 'homme'. 'On' soon enough became 'one.' So, when we say one's, we are still saying man's. The genitive is correct because, although we don't realise it, we're referring to a noun employed as a pronoun, not as a pure pronoun. Conversely, 'it' is rarely a noun, and follows pronoun apostrophe rules.
I apologise if my ruminations are the mental equivalent of asphyxiation. The combination of a hermit-like existence and my reddish temperament often make me 'get into' discussions like this, to use a horrible phrasal verb, with considerable animation. --It's-is-not-a-genitive 00:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
¡Socorro! | This userbox is officially lost. |
thanks for deleting my work and illustration. you said it was the same as the other proof. as a graduate in mathematics, i studied the other proof. while it was similar, i thought my presentation was much easier to follow (especially for a young reader). the labeling of the outside of the square with 'a' and 'b', for me was a revelation in simplicity. can you please tell me if there is a place i can place my illustration and explanation without you deleting it and calling it silly?
I have removed your ((attention)) tag from Formula (disambiguation), since that tag is for articles, not disambiguation pages. Considering Wikipedia:Disambiguation and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), tell me what needs to be done to this dab page.--Commander Keane 00:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate the fixes you made on some of recent articles I have edited. I have been concentrating on text and not paying enough attention to the section headers. Hope to talk to you again soon. :) -- SusanLarson (User Talk, New talk, Contribs) 00:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Could you assist at Talk:Supermatrix? Charles Matthews 07:56, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for standardizing headers on all those biographies I started! Jokestress 00:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Does it need that hyphen? I never thought it did! --Phatmonkey 13:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
The best I can say is that I was in a hurry at the time, and thus didn't track down every page that linked to the one I deleted. Sorry. DS 22:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Did you intended to change to . If so, it needs to be done in the entire article. Arthur Rubin | (talk) 23:59, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Please vote here. — goethean ॐ 22:39, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I removed the link to Lens because that is a disambiguation page. I did find a new place to link to, though: Sunglasses#Lens.--Srleffler 05:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
The Edit Summary edit summary usage for user:Michael Hardy is 26% for major edits and 31% for minor edits. Based on the last 150 major and 150 minor edits in the article, category, and template namespace. Standard deviation is .02. Mathbot 05:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
In deference to civility I am biting my tongue in my response here; "brain researchers who write things like this have at best a very childish understanding of what mathematics is, and what you wrote on that page tends to confirm my suspicion". Do you have any idea how arrogant and uninformed this sounds; in the future, meta:Don't be a dick? Here is what "brain researchers" do; some of it requires an understanding of, like, numbers and stuff:
I'll respond to your actual point on the talk page. Semiconscious • talk 23:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Obnoxious "otheruses" template deleted.
Because it's a one-size-fits-all straightjacket. The phrasing cannot be adapted to the article. In particluar, it refuses even to let the user choose judiciously between a capital and a lower-case initial letter in the name of the article being linked to. Michael Hardy 03:16, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'm thinking of creating a category for binomial topics, that would contain everything in the List of factorial and binomial topics. Any suggestions for a good name for that category? e.g Category:Binomials or Category:Factorials and binomials ?? linas 00:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
"Allow a better level of refinement"?? That seems absurd. Lists are obviously more flexible. Michael Hardy 20:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Mr. Hardy: We've gotten off on the completely wrong foot, and it's put me ill at ease. I freely admit the stresses of real life have perhaps affected how I perceive online communication: with expression, intonation, and nonverbal communication removed I've forgotten to assume good faith and instead immediately adopted a defensive stance on an issue that truly isn't that important to me. With those excuses said, I'd like to apologize. I've not had much time for WP lately, and I'm going to have less in the near future; the thought of leaving this unsaid sits ill at ease with me. You're clearly a very intelligent person who is trying to prevent the propagation of poorly understood ideas. Cheers! Semiconscious • talk 01:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Could you comment this? TIA. CiaPan 21:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Hello. Please consider also adding your changes at Affine to Affine combination, Affine transformation, and Affine representation. Ewlyahoocom 06:39, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the correction: I incorrectly thought that the Gauss-Markov assumptions included normality, but after checking I realize you are write. Sorry for the mistake, I'll correct the article.
D'Oh! I always mess up doing that sort of thing. Unfortunately it's a habit. I'll try my best to do better next time, but often I just forget. --One Salient Oversight 01:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Hello. Thank you for your notice on my talk page. Sorry if you'd had a bad day. I wasn't aware of the template dablink, which I agree is a more appropriate one to have on the honey article. Now may I answer your accusations? I didn't place the otheruses template on the honey article. My edit to the otheruses template left it so that it would not say for other uses of honey, but for other uses of "Honey", and "honey" is not just used to describe sweet bee spit. I thought I was making an improvement to the template. Sorry you thought otherwise, but I don't think such a minor disagreement calls for dismissals of other contributors' efforts as "abominations", or imputations of barbarism. Good day to you. --RobertG ♬ talk 09:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I noticed you removed a few superfluous underscores from links in MIT a while back. I've noticed some fairly egregious examples of this, not just [[Styx_(band)|Styx]]
but also things like [[James_Clerk_Maxwell|James Clerk Maxwell's]]
. I fix them as I come across them, but I noticed there isn't anything in the Manual of Style specifically addressing this.
Sure, it's only number 1138 on the List of irritating user mistakes, but do you think we should add some language to the style guide about it?
Anville 06:33, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
A note of explanation on rolling back HMM from "Hidden Markov model" to "Hidden Markov Model"; we try to keep the upper-case letters indicative of where the initials that make up the initialism came. (I just wish the rollback button allowed me to leave a short explanation...)
Urhixidur 02:56, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
Re: your edit to Light (disambiguation), please refer to Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Linking_to_a_primary_topic. Ewlyahoocom 15:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Please don't modify the Manual of Style just to suit your tastes. If you feel strongly about italics on disambiguation pages please make the suggestion on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) and allow it to be debated. Additionally be prepared to bring the 1000's of disambiguation pages into line with your new style. However, I would much prefer to invite you to help us fix-up the numerous disambiguation pages that need attention and edit them to meet the current style. Ewlyahoocom 16:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
It is not only in disambiguation pages that I use italics correctly. I follow the style manual in this regard.
I see no grounds for your insistence that we make a special exception for disambiguation pages. Michael Hardy 22:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Regarding this edit [8], you may want to refrain from the use of the term "profoundly idotic" when referring to other editors' mistakes. Thank you. - Liberatore(T) 13:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi,
Could you please either remove the deletion tag on the article or at least explain what is still missing after my latest edits? Thanks. Deimos 28 12:24, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Hello, hello! I saw that you were one of the folks who worked on the entry about Seward Collins. I'm the Michael Tucker referenced at the end of the article and I'd love to compare notes with whoever it was that did the original piece. I've never even met anyone else who knew who Collins was, much less wrote about him. Would you be the source? cheers --Mjt57 13:26, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi, Michael. Even if I did learn iff in high school, it has long been forgotten. I need a calculator or spreadsheet for simple arithmatic these days. Also, the if and only if article states that using the shorthand in writing is inappropriate. --Nelson Ricardo 01:23, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi Michael,
I apologize for reverting Exponential to vandalism. It failed to cross my mind that the record label might not be the proper article, despite my possessing a solid foundation in mathematics. :-) Thanks for tidying the article (and me). It might have been the day an anonymous user vandalized a bunch of pages, so I just followed their tracks and reverted them, evidently without enough investigation. Thanks again. EncMstr 01:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Michael,
Thanks for sorting out my failure to use bold on the AFM Smith article. Appreciated.
Blaise 12:41, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Hello Michael. Thank you for your professionalism in the matter concerning the "Disco" page. I have posted a thank you to all those involved on the talk page, and complemented everyone on the modifications. However, we have a persistent problem that is an item of concern to me, to Wikipedia, and the public at large. It is probably due to my being surrounded by academics for the greater part of the day that I am not accustomed to such people as the respondent to my suggestion "to continue to 'orchestrate' our work in a 'harmonious' manner so that readers are impressed by our 'symphony' of knowledge" on the Disco talk page. As a social scientist, I have tried to ameliorate the situation with all my know-how, but, at this point, I have a great fear. I am a woman, and it has become clear why I was prudent in not posting my "bio" information on my user page. Neither do I do know the person to whom these individuals keep referring nor do I understand where their deep hostility comes from, and why they persist in making slanderous remarks for public viewing. And I also fear that I could be implicated in bringing this unknowing third party, who cannot even be contacted (I tried; the website is only archival, the original web pages and e-mail contacts no longer exist), into a maelstrom. I would appreciate your exercising your resources in order to resolve this issue. From a moral standpoint, I feel that I might have to contact legal services within Wikipedia, just as a precaution. I await your advice. Thank you. Pol-Sci-Prof 19:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I've posted a short reply on Talk:Anonymous recursion. Bye, Shinobu 03:54, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
If the captions to these illustrations can be altered so that they say "Q-Q plot", then the illustration would be suitable for the new article titled Q-Q plot. Michael Hardy 21:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Lattice#Page_organization. --Smack (talk) 06:52, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
If you see no difference between (1) and (2), then you're not paying attention. "Why there SHOULD be"? I never said there "SHOULD" be; I said there ARE very many such cases. I suggest if you don't know that, you're simply not a mathematician. Michael Hardy 21:55, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
No -- you're missing the point. The answer to the question above is given in the article. It is not just a matter of indexing. There is no case n = 3 in the relevant sense. It is not just a matter of doing by hand the cases n = 1 and n = 2 and then starting induction at n = 3. That would in no way be analogous. You've simply missed the point. The number 3 is a sum of fewer than 3 numbers each smaller than 3; therefore there is no such case as you suggest. (Of course, obviously, there are cases in which one does the cases n = 1 and 2 by hand and starts induction at n = 3, but that has no relevance to the present article. Those would probably fit into the "first form" described in the article. Michael Hardy 20:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Why isn't this the end of the Mathematical induction article? The end of most mathematical articles is designed for those who understand the beginning. Septentrionalis 16:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm starting to see what your point is here, Michael, but
As for Polya's "erroneous proof", are you objecting to that term simply because it wasn't intended as a proof? I guess it is a matter of semantics whether one calls an example argument with a deliberate error an erroneous proof or not. In any case, you should know that the fact that all horses may be the same colour is irrelevant! Even if all horses are the same colour, this argument if presented as a proof would be erroneous. JPD (talk) 11:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Mr. Hardy, I appreciate your vast and valuable editing of Wikipedia, but I must comment further on Three forms of mathematical induction (here, so that I don't unfairly dominate the argument there). Can you understand how someone would see it as a how-to, in that it discusses in detail how to execute a certain kind of inductive proof? You are correct that it would be comprehensible to all mathematicians, but I do not believe that they would be interested in this article. It is too basic. Undergraduate math and computer science majors know how to perform a proof of the Second Form, even though they have not been taught it explicitly. The same content could be conveyed, in a manner proportional to its importance, by explaining the Polya example and one other (say, product rule) in mathematical induction. Respectfully, Joshuardavis 23:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Is the identity relation, or are the addition and multiplication operations, really inherently binary, or is it just that our conventional notation treats them that way? We can say that two horses are of the same color, or that six horses are of the same color, and it's only when you write it in mathematical notation with
that it becomes binary. Similarly in the expression
the number n of factors need not be 2; it can be 1 or 0 or 3, etc. But we can infer that all horses are of the same color from the fact that any two horses are of the same color, and that doesn't work with "one" in place of "two". Hence the form of Polya's argument. Michael Hardy 01:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Hey there--It looks to me as if you've around on Wikipedia long enough to have encountered disambiguation pages and to have read the manual of style page on disambiguation pages, so I'm not sure why you keep futzing with the Martingale page to make it nonstandard. It's just a disambiguation page; there's nothing special about the introductory phrase that needs nonstandard formatting or phrasing. If you're annoyed because it's no longer the primary page about a mathematical topic, I'm sorry. It's still just a standard disambiguation page. Elf | Talk 00:01, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Everyone in the universe has his/her/its own style guide (I know, I've had to write using many different style guides) and any organization can pretty much do what they want. Not everyone uses italics when referring to a term within a body of text; some use quotation marks, some use bold, some do nothing. And even if the word is italicized in the middle of a paragraph in which it's discussed, it's often in normal typeface or bold in its glossary entry. Chicago is a popular style guide in certain American communities but don't think it's the only style guide religiously followed in the English-speaking world, or even in the U.S. The Wikipedia community's Manual of Style has a page specifically calling out a disambiguation page format, which is largely followed. This doesn't contradict other parts of the MoS; it provides a more specific direction for a more specific situation. However, asking me why that format is used isn't going to be particularly informative, as i wasn't involved in any of the discussions about that. The place to ask that question is on that page's talk page if you really want to know, or you could always try proposing a change there. Elf | Talk 00:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
As a regular contributor to the article about weather, I would urge you to vote for it at WP:AID. This will help attract more contributors to the article. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 01:23, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Sure, no problem. I finished fixing Origin, but I'll keep it in mind in the future. --MikeJ9919 00:45, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I Always Appreciate Humor. :-) Michael Hardy 00:52, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you bothered to leave a note on my talk page about this article, as I did not nominate it for deletion and your note consisted of asking a bunch of questions to other users. Futhermore, I didn't even recommend that it be deleted, only that it be transfered to a more appropriate medium. --Hetar 01:43, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Michael Hardy 02:24, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
"(3) It is inappopriate to put NEW discoveries on Wikipedia. It is against Wikipedia policy."
I didn't and I don't, unless you were trying to say that it would be appropriate to put this article here if it were a new discovery. Michael Hardy 02:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Am I the one who's hostile? Was I not reacting to your irrational hostile behavior? Michael Hardy 20:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
OK, I've looked over the comments I've written on your talk page, and I can't figure out what you're calling "hostile". It seems appropriate that someone who's said the things you've said would be reacted to as if their author is a crackpot pontificating on things he's never even heard of, but I mainly just asked questions. Michael Hardy 20:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Please dont rant on my talk page. you already made your point on thw afd page and thats all you need to do. and might i point out that if you cant even work out which part of a wikipedia signature is the username then perhaps it is you who dont have the wiki experience, not me. i havent edited any mathematics articles here, but that doesnt mean i cant tell the difference between an encyclopedic article and a nonencyclopedic one - or that i am ignorant of mathematics. for all you know i may have a phd on the newton-raphson method and its use with continuously differentiable functions. in any case it would be far more useful if you tried defending the article - rather than attacking those who do not see it as worth a place in wikipedia. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 05:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
to rant means "to speak or declaim in a violent, loud, or vehement manner" according to my dictionary. your vehement and loud declamation was clearly a rant.
my vote simply makes it clear that this article is not encyclopedic. if there was a similar mathematical proof presented that any x was greater than any y it would not be encyclopedic either. it might be useful in one of wikipedias sister projects but it doesnt belong here in that form.
did you or did you not claim that my comments were "very clumsy"? did you or did you not attack my knowledge of the subject area based on my lack of edits to other wikipedia mathematics articles? both ad hominem, personal attacks. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 23:48, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
I merely asked what experience you had. And the point of that question, if not to suggest to readers that i did not know about the subject, was what, precisely? Couple that with the suggestion that my comment was clumsy, and there is the clear intention of showing that my knowledge of the subject is inferior to yours. is that in any way a defence of the article on its merits? no. it is an attack on my ability to judge the worth of the article. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 00:15, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
That may have been your intention, but thts not how it sounded to me - it sounded like an attack on my knowledge. im sure it will have sounded that way to others involved in the debate too. BL Lacertae - kiss the lizard 00:59, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Hardy, but I work for a professor of applied mathematics. I appreciate your proof, which is indeed quite pretty. Types of proof are, I believe, encyclopedic. But the material of specific proofs is *not* unless specifically supporting a point about the main topic. A proof that illustrates an important property of pi would be encyclopedic, although I would still advise a merge to Pi. But this specific proof of a well known inequality, whose only notability is its elegance, is not relevant enough to non-mathematicians to include in a 'general encyclopedia.
However, it is relevant to someone interested in mathematics, which is why I didn't recommend a deletion, but a transwiki to WikiBooks. It's worth keeping: just in the right slot. I hope this clarifies matters. Alba 17:14, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
In other news, I am disturbed by your apparent failure to assume good faith. Please do not assume I am on some sort of jeremiad, or that I am insulting you or your contributions. Alba 18:05, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi,
I noticed you created History of pi and the "chronology..." page. Could you have a glance at Talk:History of numerical approximations of π and give your opinion? — MFH:Talk 23:12, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not out to wipe all proofs from wikipedia, and I don't appreciate you attributing such a hostile intent to my action. The reason I feel it shouldn't exist in its current form is that despite all the claims to elegance and such, there's no objective criteria for inclusion that justifies this article, such as historical importance or proof of a significant property. The other articles in category:proofs are either about methods used in proofs or important proofs that are well known and have been useful. This proof doesn't have any historical importance attached to it in the way that a proof of a major problem in math is—mathematicians have known pi<22/7 far longer than they've been doing calculus. "indiscriminate collection of information" applies because this proof becomes the equivalent of an "interesting fact" about a person--worthy of inclusion in the article on the person, but not worth its own article. On its own, it's unencyclopedic. Night Gyr 23:50, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
I will write specific responses. As for "vitriol", I responded to several comments that looked so irrational that I would expect those who wrote them, after they sobered up the next morning, to be aghast when they realized what they had done. That was actually separate from my defense of the article, even though it was on the same page. Michael Hardy 23:26, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
You recent edit seems rash. Granted, hard numbers are not available; the census does not ask about religious affiliation. In November, 2004, the Minneapolis StarTribune reported on the distribution of Jewish residents within the Twin Cities area, and it is substantially in accord with what you deleted. But can you really say it is "unverifiable" that that stereotype is associated with St. Louis Park? Michael Hardy 03:38, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'm the "horribly irresponsible" person who put a hatnote on color printing. I put up the most appropriate I could find, but obviously you knew of something better. In fact, since you clearly feel strongly about this, why not add an eg of "dablink" to pages like Wikipedia:Hatnotes and Wikipedia:Disambiguation, and their daughters (in the same form as the "Otheruses" egs)? Currently, even the "See also" links tell one very little about "dablink". Then you could tackle the problem at source rather than getting peeved at individual articles. JackyR 15:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I have asked you TWICE to refrain from posting on my talk page regarding the 22/7 article. Doing so a third time constitutes harassment. Let me spell it out for you one last time. Please do not contact me again about this article or its AfD debate under any circumstances. Any further concerns can be expressed on the article's talk page. Thank you. --Hetar 19:33, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Please note that mathematical series is a redirect page. One should link instead to series (mathematics). Michael Hardy 03:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I saw you moved Monkey Island (disambiguation) to Monkey Island, but now the old Monkey Island, which was about the Monkey Island series of computer games, article is gone - any idea on how to retrieve that? Poulsen 09:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I moved it, but I did not remove it. It's not gone. Michael Hardy 20:29, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
... and now I've looked again. It's right in front of your face. See Monkey Island. Michael Hardy 20:30, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Material moved from WP:3O, which is not the place to have arguments about behavior. Also copied to User talk:hetar
I just wanted to thank you for answering my question about irrational numbers. That's an idea that's been kicking around in the back of my head for some time now. No one had ever taught me that, and unlike others you mentioned, I did not accept it as fact. I had kind of wondered though.
I am not, by any measure, a mathematician, but I have some pretty diverse interests.Zaklog 18:17, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
You created this page and have edited heavily. I see a style, or format, that I do not recognize or understand, viz:
This creates a link to corresponding talk pages but the links contain no text. In my browser, the links are invisible and unclickable unless the page does not exist. Could you please tell me how this is useful? Thank you. John Reid 04:09, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
The second set of square brackets creates the invisible non-clicakble link to the article's talk page. Michael Hardy 04:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm still a newbie, and timid about reverting, but I couldn't figure out what he was talking about, and was thinking of reverting it myself if no one jumped in. William Ackerman 01:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
It seemed as if you were attacking other editors for mathematical ignorance, instead of arguing the article on its merits. One of the key tenets of wikipedia is that editors need not be experts; those who wish to support an article should be able to point to references and sources that can support its validity without the need for a trained eye to evaluate subjective factors like elegance. Unfinished Sympathy has an article not just because an editor thought it was a great song, but because they could point to critics who have cited it as one. If you can point to mathematicians that have cited a proof as important or especially elegant then it doesn't matter if other editors are math experts--there are trained experts who have given their opinion already. If you can't find an authority to support it, then you have to ask what you're going to base your assertion of the importance of the article's subject on. Night Gyr 16:12, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you; I had put off the small but tedious job of searching for the articles until I finished dealing (for the moment instant) with my perennial nuisance, which I have just now done. I had no intention of abandoning the redlinks. Septentrionalis 19:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I removed the first three paragraphs from the geostatistics article, after coughing a hairball over them. I don't know if your expertise covers this area, but we use geostatistical methods every day where I work (mainly kriging) and that's the first I've ever heard them called "junk science". Do you know if we have any geostatisticians on the project? Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 04:00, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I'm doing a survey of Wikipedia editors as part of a class research project. It's quick, anonymous, and the data will be made available to the Wikipedia community later this month. Would you like to take part? More info here. Thanks! Nonplus 00:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
In response to:
Also, I wonder if I can convince you to use lower case, thus:
The problem is that the capital letter seems to cause some editors to think it is necessary to use a capital, and then they start doing it in visible links, starting a common noun with a capital letter in the middle of a sentence. [[User:Michael Hardy|Michael Hardy] 02:05, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I am conducting a survey on Wikipedia and would like to invite you to participate in the study. I've posted a message on wikien-l, but here is the link again in case you are not subscribed to that list-serv. Thanks a lot for your time! --Mermes 01:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
![]() |
The Minor Barnstar | |
A Barnstar for minor edits, but not a minor Barnstar! Thank you for your tireless work: you wikify tons of articles, and explain wikipedia' standards to tons of users! gala.martin (what?) 00:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC) |
Thank you for formatting my additions. --VKokielov 02:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi Michael,
would you please block User:64.213.188.94, User:DEWEY, and User:KOJIN, which are obvious sockpuppets of banned User:WAREL, and furthermore are engaging in edit warring at field (mathematics)? (Technically, KOJIN has not edited field (mathematics), but is almost certainly the same person.) --Trovatore 22:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi Michael, thanks for putting me right on Vatican Hill. I did read the article of course but I missed that. It's one of those things I was so sure of from of old that I mustn't have taken in the contradiction at all ~ Veledan • Talk 19:59, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
The Mediation Cabal
You are a disputant in a case listed under Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases.
We invite you to be a mediator in a different case.
Please read How do I get a mediator assigned to my case? for more information.
~~~~
Fasten 19:55, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the redirect fix. That was what I wanted to do, but couldn't remember how. With your example, now I can add a few more. Sbharris 19:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Is it not then JDandelinEn ? Rich Farmbrough 23:17 15 April 2006 (UTC).
My main reason for removing the punctuation was that the formulas were not displaying after that, when I had just the day before seen them fine. Now that I think about it, it was probably just that Wikipedia was very slow at the time in rendering or serving the images. I do not find the discussion or style recommendation for punctuation on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mathematics or Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics. Is there a reason to put the punctuation within the MATH tag instead of outside of it? - Centrx 20:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Definitely. If TeX is used in the normal way, rather than the way is used on Wikipedia, this is not important, but on Wikipedia, a final period or comma OUTSIDE of the math tags often gets misaligned, being put ridiculously too high or too low, or even in some cases getting pushed down to the beginning of the next line. Michael Hardy 00:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Please do not make personal attacks on other people. Wikipedia has a policy against personal attacks. In some cases, users who engage in personal attacks may be blocked from editing by admins or banned by the arbitration committee. Comment on content, not on other contributors or people. Please resolve disputes appropriately. Thank you.
Michael Hardy 22:48, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Michael, thanks for the helpful advice! I'll leave out the underscores from now on!
Just out of curiousity, does it hurt to leave the underscores in place if you pipe it to a visible entry, like axis? Is there a guideline that talks about that? Usually, I copy and paste the actual link to save on potential typos... - Dreadlocke 22:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
You wrote:
Thanks for fixing that, it was just an error - it wasn't done on purpose. Also, I don't see any reason I can't continue using the underscore, unless it's in a visible link. Dreadlocke 01:30, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for helping me find a better way to work with links. It led to my suggestion being added to the manual of style by Lethe. Pretty cool! - Dreadlocke 04:35, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Your list of examples is nice, but can you present even one example where an article showcasing a person uses this method? I doubt you'll be able to because it's simply a ridiculous concept and absolutely and completely unnecessary—in all of the examples you showed I found that texts preceding the article's title were necessary to explain the concept of the article. Your viewpoint is akin to starting the George W. Bush article with "America's George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States"—completely and utterly pointless and unprofessional. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 02:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I added a comment to Talk:Fibonacci's identity --Alex 06:14, 28 April 2006 (UTC)<</nowiki>
I noted that you have been contributing to articles about saints. I invite you to join the WikiProject Saints.
![]() |
You are invited to participate in Saints WikiProject, a project dedicated to developing and improving articles about saints. We are currently discussing prospects for the project. Your input would be greatly appreciated! |
I also invite you to join the discussion on prayers and infoboxes here: Prayers_are_NPOV.
Thanks! --evrik 15:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi,
I noticed that you appeared in the edit history of the justification (theology) article. I recently made major changes to the article in an effort to move it to NPOV. If you have any suggestions for improvement (style, content, whatever), please leave a comment on the talk page for that article. The goal is to get the article to the point that the POV and cleanup templates can be removed.
Thanks, --jrcagle 20:21, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I prefer to use TeX only when the formula cannot be typed in pure HTML or wiki markup. I remember having read somewhere in WP that this one was the preferred criterion. The reason is that images are more expensive to load than pure text markup, and there is also an additional overhead in the server side when the formula is parsed and transformed to an image. This isn't a big deal to me, but I think that using TeX only to display a nabla, when ∇ does well, is like killing a fly with a battleship. Best regards. rbonvall 21:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Yr correction is fine, too. I figured someone had some reasoning behind making Elan vital a disambiguation page, and just transferred it to Élan vital, which would have been the best place for it. Nixing the disambig page from the getgo works fine though. Thanks for taking the time to put it together. mxdxcxnx T C 01:46, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Haha, yea, i guess i just capitalize "L" out of habit. I havent been doing in lately, but i was in a hurry when i was making the benilde article, so i most likely just forgot. Its actually not that big a deal because there are a number of bots that check pages and make the fix. Thanks for the reminder though.--Gephart 02:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I've got myself involved in something of a revert war at Frequency probability with an editor who seems determined to censor any mention of Bayesian concepts as an alternative. If you have time, you might want to take a look. JQ 09:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello there, I would like to add some more material to the page, but there seem to be two copies of it now that you renamed the page. I am not sure which one to edit; the two links (old and new) both still work. How do I tell Wikipedia that the old version should be re-directed to the new one and that the old one is definitely deprecated? - Zahlentheorie 10:09, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that you edited Nicollet Island to reflect the idea that Northeast Minneapolis is a proper name. Actually, the northeast part of Minneapolis isn't a separate city; it's just a region bounded (roughly) by Hennepin Avenue on the south, the Mississippi River on the west, the northern border with Fridley and Columbia Heights, and the eastern border with St. Paul. (Stop me if you're from the area and you know this already.) Since there's no city named "Northeast Minneapolis", I don't think "Northeast" is supposed to be capitalized. Then again, I'm not sure if there's a rule for this. Do you know if there's a specific rule? --Elkman - (talk) 20:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, my oops :-(. I changed the article. Doesn't capitalization automatically redirect? Deepak 23:12, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
If you find yourself in a pedagogical mood, I wonder if you might stop by Theory of one divided by zero, Walstad's Paradox, and their related AfD discussions, and explain to the young theorist (autobiography at Lee Field Walstad) in clear terms what he's doing wrong?
This isn't strictly necessary, as he has not yet demonstrated the kind of stubbornness that results in article re-creation against consensus, but he seems so earnest. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
When calculating , please explain how could be anything other than 0 or a positive integer. Thanks! --New Thought 07:45, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Hello, Mr. Hardy,
I have just posted a note on the User Talk page of Mr. Alexandrov, who removed my edit to the definition of b^n under the logarithm article. You then changed it with the idea of addressing my point in the discussion of the page. I thought you would be interested in what I just wrote to him, with the idea of asking him to restore something like my original change (but a bit shorter). The rationale is included in this copy of my note to him. I will also check back here for any reply from you. Here is my note to him:
Hello, Mr. Alexandrov. I do not think your removal of my change to the logarithm article is as useful as the change itself was. Although I agree with you about not using unnecessary wording, the part I added was not entirely unnecessary. Rather, it corrected an inaccuracy in the definition of b^n. Now a further user has changed it again to something still not as accurate as what I put in (see below). I will not change it again on the main page, to avoid repeated back-and-forth. However, I would like to make the case here to suggest you change it to something more accurate. Here is the edit I had put in:
... b^n means multiplying b by itself a number of times, using it as a factor in this multiplication n times ...
You changed it back to the original to say
" ... b^n means multiplying b by itself n times ...".
This is not correct, as I pointed out on the talk page associated with the article. If you multiply b by itself one time, you get b*b = b^2, not b^1. If you multiply b by itself 2 times, you get b*b*b = b^3, not b^2. It may be that the English is subtle here, especially for a non-native English speaker. However, this version is clearly inaccurate.
Michael Hardy has now changed it to
" ... b^n means b is multiplied n times ..."
This, I think, is unclear, and still able to be interpreted as inaccurate in the same way the original was. If b is multiplied two times, it could easily mean b*b*b - that has two multiplications, whereas b*b only has one.
If you still object to my initial language, I propose this, shorter than my original change, but still more accurate than either revision of what I put:
" ... b^n means multiplying b by itself, using it as a factor n times ..."
Please consider making this change, or proposing a better one that does not have the original problem I pointed out.
Thanks, Ken Cliffer (I am a scientist, with a Ph.D. in anatomy, but now work as an educational consultant, currently developing math videos. This issue came up in our presentation of exponentiation. I was happy to see that the Wikipedia article on exponentiation did not have this problem.)
NOTE added 14 May: Mr. Alexandrov has responded, and there has been some continuation of this on the talk page for the logarithm article; you may go there for follow-up.
(In response to User talk:Zawersh#confidence interval.) Thanks for catching and fixing my erroneous addition to confidence interval, I suppose I was being a bit too bold in adding to an article something I really don't understand all that well.
The main thing I was trying to do was add a table with some of the Z-scores, since both I and the other person on the talk page had been seeking them out on Wikipedia and hadn't found them. (The text I added was just to give context to the table, guess I didn't do a very accurate job.) A table similar to the Student's t-distribution table would be nice for the the Z-scores, or perhaps more accurately a table of standard normal probabilities, but I'm not really sure where an appropriate place would be for them. On reflection, the normal distribution article would probably be more appropriate than confidence interval. Any thoughts on the matter? -- Zawersh 02:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
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Ravedave 03:08, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm responding to your comments on my talk page relating to the Warsaw, North Dakota article being labeled as a stub. I'm not 100% sure why you directed this at me because I was not the one who added the stub tag to this article. Someone else added the stub tag and I just changed it to a more precise stub classification (geography). --MatthewUND(talk) 07:22, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
—Steven G. Johnson 04:25, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your cleanup of this section, it says what I thought it should say. On another note, I have started working on the problem you posted on the Talk:Packing problem. It looks like this way just uses up more space (so less circles) but I will work through the maths.Captainj 21:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi Michael. I wonder if you could comment at talk:compound Poisson process. It is something which I don't know much about. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 17:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi Michael. I have a remark. Per the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, I think it is preferred to use bold when emphasizing the concept of an article at the beginning of the article, rather than bold italic. So, it appears that text like
woud be better off like
It is a small thing, and bold italic seems fine also, but I thought I'd point out the more widely used convention. The reason for keeping just one of the two (bold, instead of bold italic), would be in my view for uniformity's sake. Wonder what you think. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:31, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
It is standard that book titles and film titles are italicized when referred to in Wikipedia articles, whether or not they are part of the bolded initial appearance of the article's title. I think the same would apply to journal titles. The purpose of bolding is emphasis; the purpose of italicization is not emphasis but something else. Michael Hardy 22:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Michael,
a few years ago you authored Counting section in Multiset. Now it is titled Multiset coefficients. I think, wording in this section requires some tweaking. Currently it says that multiset coefficient is "the number of submultisets of size k in a set of size n". From the derivation below I can understand what do you mean, but this wording is at odds with all the terminology defined above.
In Formal definition the article says "The set A is called the underlying set of elements." At the end of this section it defines submultiset with relation to multiset (not to set!).
So, the proper frase would be something like Multiset coefficient is the number of multisets of size k built on a set of size (or cardinality?) n. Or Multiset coefficient is the number of multisets of size k with undelying set of size (or cardinality?) n.
What do you think? I do not want to edit the article itself, because this topic is not exactly my major.
Regards, Alex -- talk to me 07:05, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the tip. Capitalistroadster 01:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I have figured out how to get an article exported from Wikipedia as XML. The resulting file contains the text of the article as one big chunk, however. I would like to get the parsed article as XML, e.g. with nodes for sections, tables, math etc. Do I have to write a parser myself? Thanks for any help you may be able to offer. - Zahlentheorie 15:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't actually know anything about XML, so I'm not the person to ask. Michael Hardy 20:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi, Michael. I've been working on a problem and can't seem to come up with a solution. Maybe you could provide me with some insight. I have been using Monte Carlo simulations to predict the outcome of investments 30 years from now - both the expected value as well as the distribution of outcomes. I'm wondering if there is a way to bypass the Monte Carlo simulations and estimate the variance of the future value analytically.
More specifically, I understand that the future value (FV) can be estimated from:
Ln(FV/current value) = n x ln(1+GM)
where GM is geometric mean of the annual returns and n is number of years
BIG QUESTION: Is there a way to determine the variance of FV without using Monte Carlo simulations?
I presume it is safe to say that:
Variance of Ln(FV/current value) = Variance of [n x Ln(1+r)]
But where do I go from there?
I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks and best regards, Tom Holcombe
I won't make this into a revert war I will leave this. But no it isn't "ridiculous" as you claim to include a standard heading like this. It is just a different way of doing things to what "you" are expecting. The heading becomes an expected place to house all number of different adaptations. It help give a consistency to to the placing of items of information within an article. Not ridiculous, just different. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Michael, in your recent edit of the Pythagorean theorem article, your edit summary said that you were "Moving the new "Why squares and a sum" section into the section on proofs"; however, you moved your section under "Converse of the theorem". This is probably incorrect, but I just wanted to let you doublecheck. In any case, I don't think "Converse of the theorem" deserves a full section by itself (I think it was under "Proofs" earlier, which makes more sense to me), but this is a different question. Cheers, Schutz 08:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Michael, thanks for your comments about my edit. By "clarity", I was refering to the replacement of
(inline with the identity)
with
(inline with the preceding explanation)
I felt it was a little odd to say , as is the angle within the half-circle, not a half-circle itself. Thus, my edit summary referred not to the typesetting, but to the clarification of the text. Hope that makes sense! djsik 18:29, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
RickP 06:42, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Hello! I noticed that you have been a contributor to articles on Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion. You may be interested in checking out a new WikiProject - WikiProject Anglicanism. Please consider signing up and participating in this collaborative effort to improve and expand Anglican-related articles! Cheers! Fishhead64 23:32, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Why do you call ((otheruses)) a "hideous offensive template"? You have now removed it twice from the mathematics article, and I would like to know why. "Other senses" of the word would imply alternate definitions, in fact the disambig page is just a link to a producer and some other religious thing. —Mets501 (talk) 02:07, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
The phrase that is used should be adapted to the occasion as appropriate. (That's one thing that that idiotic template does not allow.) Michael Hardy 22:02, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
PS: I don't think I'm the only one who thinks it's a bad template. I'm just the only one who says so so often. Michael Hardy 22:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Why is "de Bruijn sequence" not written as "De Bruijn sequence", with capital D? At least in Dutch, the first character of a name has to be a capital, even if it is something like "de" or "van" (so meneer (mister) De Bruijn, but Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn) and I never learned that that's different in English. And after all, De Bruijn was a Dutchman.DaanAlberga 13:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
While I appreciate the fine work you've put into this section, it seems to amount to a report about a BB&T press release which was designed to exploit sentiment surrounding the contentious Supreme Court ruling. Whether any bank actually follows a similar stated policy is unlikely to be reported by the bank or by independent journalists. Future "victims" of eminent domain will likely be unaware of the bank's policy, and extremely unlikely to follow any subsequent money trails. Presumably, banks will loan money to "beneficiary/ies" of eminent domain after the domain action, and these bodies are likely not to be the same legal or financial entities which benefitted from the original action.
In short, why should a report about a press release be part of an encyclopedic entry? The press release was designed to advance a non-NPOV image of the bank, and as a result, its inclusion here does the same.--Son of Somebody 23:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
There is a proposed revision of the last paragraph of the intro at the bottom of the talk pages:
131.107.0.81 01:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Greetings! Your talk page is getting a bit long in the tooth - please consider archiving your talk page (or ask me and I'll archive it for you). Cheers! BD2412 T 00:16, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Illustration of density estimation you wrote
Can you tell me why you said that, and what your background is in the field of statistics? Was the method altogether different from the ones explained in the published papers that were cited? Michael Hardy 21:52, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
To me it doesn't look any more like an academic paper than lots of other Wikipedia articles, but I don't see how style makes it a secondary source, or why it's being a secondary souce would be an objection. Wikipedia is often a secondary souce, and that's what it's supposed to be. The prohibition agains original research is a prohibition against Wikipedia's being a primary source. How in the world does anything's being a secondary source amout to a reason to call it "original research"? A concrete example of kernel density estimation is certainly not original research. Michael Hardy 20:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I see that you're a recent editor of the Exponential Family page. What's your opinion on my removing the dispute on this page about the Weibull distribution? There is no attested reason for including the Weibull in the exponential family. So I would leave in place the assertion of a previous editor that the Weibull and the Cauchy distributions are well-known for not being in the family, and remove the word 'dispute'. I previously raised the issue on the Talk page but did not get a reaction from anyone. There's a long story about the Weibull that I won't bore you with, and perhaps you already know it. EdJohnston 02:17, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your assistance in formulating my English. I do my best, but as a Dutchman it's often hard to find the right words.Nijdam 18:28, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Dear Michael,
Many thanks for the help in editing wiki-paper on eventology. Obviously, my English is not perfect. Moreover, your help was rather pertinent and indispensable. I understand, that you are very busy. And nevertheless I'd like to address to you with the request of the same sort.
On July, 30th I leave for Paris on Conference IPMU-2006, where I have the session E22 on eventology.
Would you be so kind to find a spare minute and examine preambles of two wiki-papers from the point of view of your excellent English style?:
Thank you in advance:) - Helgus 04:21, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
this article is well written for what is there, and it could be an important article for its connection to ecology and other fields. i think you could easily make it a great article by discussing some simple applications of the model...ideally to biodiversity. regards Anlace 21:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I moved the text you added on public versus private executions in the Unites States from the article on capital punishment in general to the United States specific article, Capital punishment in the United States. JCO312 04:26, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi. You might be interested in participating in new Wikipedia:WikiProject Contract bridge. Regards, Duja 10:17, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Michael,
I was wondering why you moved Transport Phenomena to Transport Phenomenon? I understand the difference between plural and singular, but in the field of Chemical engineering the plural form is the most commonly used form. You could write on the convection page that it is a transport phenomenon, but the field of study is called 'Transport Phenomena'. The classic text on the subject is also called Transport Phenomena. Further, I think the plural term is better since the article is describing a bunch of processes rather than a single transport phenomenon. I would like to move the page back to its original. Let me know why you shifted it. Thanks.
Hi Mike - here is my response:
Honestly - do you really feel the best word to summarize my "personal life" is my "career"? What dictionary entry is the one you are citing, in the Oxford English Dictionary? It surely is not the modern one. The O.E.D. lists a lot of denotations. I REFUSE to conflate "career" with "personal life" - i have NEVER heard this sense of "career" until i came here. i do not think we should define things unnaturally/unrecognizably like this. I cannot imagine more than 1% of the population recognizing this usage of the word "career". If you ask people what their career is, they will tell you about their string of employment, the kind of work they do, the money they make, etc. They will NOT tell you about their lover, their free time, their hobbies, etc; - & THOSE are the things of Personal Life. The sense of "career" you are using is misleading at least, difficult to understand at best - & this is a public encyclopedia; not the place for weird definitions to come out & play. Again - this sense of "career" you use is NOT the usual sense of the word, & you are using it in the opening definition of the manifestly important Personal Life article. i fully disagree with saying my Personal Life is my Career. Those two, Personal Life & Career, are to be contrasted, not synonymized. Just because a word has an obscure meaning doesn't mean we should use it.
the OED definition you (Michael) gave was truncated; here is the full denotation for this sense of "career":
(Oxford English Dictionary)
so, in mod. language, we see the sense most of us are familiar with - the standard niche of the word: "A course of professional life or employment". THAT is the modern standard definition of "career" (ask people around you) - & THAT is not Personal Life. As Jim pointed out, the modern, most-used denotation of the word you used to define Personal Life is contrary to Personal Life. I vote to change the opening definition of Personal Life from someone's "career" to something much more agreeable. I cannot imagine leaving this as is. lakitu 08:27, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi Michael. This is about today's edits to radius of curvature, etc. I think there may be a more subtle issue here that needs fixing, and I would like your input on it. Firstly, thanks for fixing the bit about arcs "tangent to a curve". I thought that was dodgy myself when I copied it to the disambig page from radius, but I didn't know how to improve on it. Note, though, that this flawed description still appears at radius.
Now, the issue I'm concerned about is that I think there may be at least two distinct quantities that use the name radius of curvature. This was why I made the latter into a disambiguation page in the first place. Clearly mathematics uses the definition you wrote in: a local measure of curvature corresponding to the radius of the osculating circle at a point. I believe, however, that in engineering and to some extent in physics, radius of curvature is more commonly a global property of a surface. The surface is typically presumed to have a circular geometry, possibly with imperfections. In the case where the surface is imperfect some means is defined by which an appropriate circle is associated with the surface. For example, as described at radius, an engineer might use the smallest circle that completely circumscribes the curved surface (in cross-section). Contrary to that article, I'm pretty sure this definition isn't universal. Depending on the circumstances or the specifications on the drawing the largest circle that can be inscribed might be used, for example. In this usage, radius and radius of curvature are precisely synonymous, altough neither quite corresponds to the mathematician's definition in the case where the surface is not perfectly circular in cross section.
The usage in optics is another case. Traditionally, optical surfaces were nearly invariably spherical, and "radius of curvature" referred exclusively to the radii of the optical surfaces (as distinct from the radius of the optical component's aperture). Now that we have the capability to make "aspheric" optical surfaces, it is conventional to describe them with the equation
where z points in the direction of the optic axis, and is the z-position of the surface at distance from that axis. is defined to be the radius of curvature of the surface. The other parameters, , , etc., are constants that describe the departure of the surface from spherical. I'm not sure whether the radius of curvature, as so defined, is compatible with your definition. I suspect not.
Any thoughts on this? Am I mistaken, or is a disambiguation page required to cover these distinct meanings?--Srleffler 22:42, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Just my mistake, if probabalists is standard terminology. A request in WP:CFR is in order if probabalists is preferred. I think Category:Mathematicians by field still needs a few more subcategories. Quale 05:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
The List of life extension-related topics has been nominated for deletion. --Transhumanist 18:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
For showing me that titles should only have the first word capitalized. --Blue Tie 02:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Hi, the Confidence Interval page seemed rather unclear (compared to your original!) and I had a go at improving it. But I'm sure you could do a better job.Jdannan 07:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Do you have a source for Spencer Heath as an anarchist? I'm fairly sure he never described himself as one, and even pretty sure no one ever called him one. The present article on Spencer Heath is almost entirely original research, essentially fabricating a "Heathian anarchism" philosophy out of a single obscure quote by Murray Rothbard, who wasn't even specifically claiming Heath as an anarchist.
As an additional note, the external link you added provides a quote from an anarcho-capitalist FAQ that uses the term "Heathian anarchism". As it happens, this particular FAQ was written by the same author as the Spencer Heath article, "Hogeye Bill". Sarge Baldy 21:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that you have over 54000 edits which makes you the loneliness person in the world. Wikipedia is a FREE encyclopedia..I am not really sure what you do for your actualy profession but you spend WAY, WAY, WAY TOO MUCH time on this site. Lemme make a few suggestions...1. talk to girls, they make for nice company, 2. try and branch out to other people..u might make your first friends...3. move out of your mom's basement.., otherwise live life to its fullest! i hope you enjoy editing because you are wasting the years away my friend. there is so much out there for you. lemme know what you think of my suggestions. Carryonson 01:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)