The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tessarine[edit]

Tessarine (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Apparently do not exist outside of the references given (I checked Google Scholar and Google Books). I've left a note at the mathematics wikiproject. Ben (talk) 08:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I've found a few reference so far [1] seems to be broken google cache is better. Also [2], [3]. --Salix alba (talk) 09:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. There's this 2006 conference proceedings paper too [4] – the top hit on Google Scholar (same author as Salix alba's [3] above). Mentions tessarines in the abstract. I think this shows tessarines have a life beyond one author's works around 1850. Apparently they, or related things, might even find some use in digital signal processing. Qwfp (talk) 21:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, as mildly notable in itself, see above, but also to allow a thorough review of this and related articles such as Biquaternion and Split-complex number. Richard Pinch (talk) 06:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, as historical pivot from ii=−1 to other complex planes including dual numbers. In this case James Cockle went out on a limb writing about at 4-D algebra that includes a "new imaginary" j satisfying jj=+1. Compare imaginary number#history.Rgdboer (talk) 20:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, but needs inline cites. We66er (talk) 19:41, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Conditional delete. The algebraic construction here seems to be a special case of the quaternions or more generally clifford algebras. I haven't checked the dates but if it turns out that their inventor preceded Hamilton's quaternions, that might be a notable fact that would be in favor of keeping it. The fact that the bibliography contains nothing but the works by their creator should have been a sure sign of a speedy deletion. I am a little puzzled by the unanimity above. If there are indeed some applications they should be documented. If this is to be included as a footnote on the history of the quaternions, well, this should be researched and documented. Without SOME relation to what is going on elsewhere in algebra, I don't see how this could interest anyone except their creator and his descendants. If there are any applications, there is certainly precious little information about them in the article. The only reason my "delete" is "conditional" is because I noticed that the article has been edited by editors whose opinion is not be be discounted, but I fail to follow as per the current state of the article, which has been around 4 years (!) Katzmik (talk) 14:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Rhetorical question Which speedy deletion criterion would apply here? --H.G. 15:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I must have meant "rapid deletion" rather than "speedy deletion". What do you think of the substance of my remarks? Katzmik (talk) 15:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that Hamilton published his quaternions five years before Cockle's first paper. These tessarines are most likely an imitation of Hamilton's work. Katzmik (talk) 15:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: My understanding (this is way outside my field) is that tessarines are a special case of biquaternions, not quaternions. From the dates on the refs in the three articles it appears that tessarines were proposed after quaternions but before biquaternions. The title of Cockle's first paper makes it clear that he was aware of Hamilton's work on quaternions, while Hamilton's mentions Cockle and tessarines in a footnote on p64 of his 1853 lecture that introduced biquaternions. --Qwfp (talk) 08:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Tentative keep because it is reasonable for Wikipedia's inclusion standards to be very different from those of, e.g. research journals. Katzmik's objection to this article seems to be that it is non-notable because no good research came of this and no prospect of such a thing is in sight, so it's not notable. But it sometimes happens that things like this get neglected for a long time before someone working in some off-beat area of research notices that something can be done that was never noticed before. A web search will turn up previous work because it's in a Wikipedia article far more surely than looking through old (19th-century in this case) journals will do. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:02, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, let's keep it then. I do think there is a guideline that a page must have actual, rather than merely potential, relevance. Katzmik (talk) 09:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment just wondering if tesarines, triplets, octaves, pluquaternion might be better treated in an article on the history of quaternion and related structures. Perhaphs merge into History of quaternions. --Salix alba (talk) 10:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Qwfp pointed out that tessarines were mentioned in an address of Hamilton's. This would lend support to including all this material in a historical section. Katzmik (talk) 10:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.