Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics

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Posetal category

It's been over a week since this RfD was relisted, but it doesn't appear to have been relisted or closed yet. So, if you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2026_May_23#Posetal_category. Thank you for participating in the discussion.--SilverMatsu (talk) 00:22, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Relisted, see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 June 15#Posetal category.--SilverMatsu (talk) 02:13, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Scope of Monad (category theory)

I asked the question because I wasn’t sure whether the scope of the article assumes that the monad laws are required to hold strictly. I would appreciate any advice on the article's talk page.--SilverMatsu (talk) 17:24, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there's a standard definition of lax monad, but I tried Wikipedia:Be bold.--SilverMatsu (talk) 02:11, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Dihedral angle of a uniform square antiprism

I am trying to calculate the dihedral angle of a uniform square antiprism through Johnson's source [1] (see Table II). But I am very worried about my calculation, which I might be misunderstanding. Care for anyone's calculation? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 13:47, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

I get the angle between a square side and an adjacent triangular side as ${\frac {\pi }{2}}+\arcsin {\frac {{\sqrt {2}}-1}{\sqrt {3}}}$.

Between two adjacent triangular sides as $\arccos {\frac {1-2{\sqrt {2}}}{3}}$. ymmv JRSpriggs (talk) 15:10, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

@JRSpriggs. Thanks. I'll put these calculations in the given article. I'll also put the citation. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 03:46, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Just asking. After some calculation, ${\sqrt {3\cot ^{2}(\pi /8)-1}}$ results in ${\sqrt {8+6{\sqrt {2}}}}$, and by the formula of denesting radical, it is ${\sqrt {\frac {8+{\sqrt {64-72}}}{2}}}+{\sqrt {\frac {8-{\sqrt {64-72}}}{2}}}\notin \mathbb {R}$. How can the result become inverse sine and cosine? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 04:46, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

I took out a common factor of sqrt(2) from numerator and denominator which I had not noticed before to simplify the expression. I did not use your linked reference because I could not get to Table II. I also did not use our article on dihedral angle. I just used my own knowledge of geometry and trigonometry. Since one must calculate distances between the vertices and then get angles from those via the definition of sine and the law of cosines, the appearance of inverse trig functions in the result is inevitable. JRSpriggs (talk) 12:30, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Oh no wonder the results are totally different. Gotta go revert. But thank you for your help. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 14:36, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Baudhayana

An anonymous user is literally going to an edit war and removing reliable source without consoling in the talk page Myuoh kaka roi (talk) 19:25, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Did you go to WP:ANEW? Or Talk:Baudhayana?Sesquilinear (talk) 19:27, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Anyone who complains about an editor not using the talk page, and not using the talk page themself, automatically puts themself in the wrong. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:54, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Now it is discussed in the talk page,I am sorry for not putting it in the talk page but the user is reverting my edits even though I provided reliable source for backing up Myuoh kaka roi (talk) 19:58, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

AfD for Order-infinite-3 triangular honeycomb

The AfD I submitted for Order-infinite-3 triangular honeycomb could probably use the opinions of some specialists in the area. I can parse the article enough to feel it should be deleted, but I'm no geometer. RaisedArizona (talk) 00:46, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Linton's theorem

Linton's theorem states that: the category of final monads on ${\textbf {Set}}$ is equivalent to the category of Lawvere theories. What is this theorem called? There also appears to be a theorem called Linton's monadicity theorem. Are these separate theorems? The titles are temporary, but I've created two drafts:Draft:Linton's theorem (Lawvere theories) and Draft:Linton's monadicity theorem.--SilverMatsu (talk) 01:10, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I changed the title of the draft to Draft:Linton's theorem (equational theory). According to Appendix A in Brandenburg (2021), although this theorem is not explicitly stated, it was essentially introduced by Linton (1969). However, it was first explicitly stated and proven by Dubuc (1970). In this sense, this theorem might be better called the Linton–Dubuc theorem, but the references call this theorem just Linton's theorem.--SilverMatsu (talk) 04:52, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

You can't forget Stigler's law... Sesquilinear (talk) 06:29, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

The article 0 refs are not in good shape

There are various issues. I was able to correct the Harv cite errors but 9 Harv warnings remain.

• Ref #1: 2 Harv warnings
• Ref #2: 2 Harv warnings
• Ref #63: 2 Harv warnings
• Ref #70: 3 Harv warnings

Fixed several Harv warnings for unused refs (using ref=none). Corrected the Seife cites & the Foerster misspellings. Corrected *some* of the Harv warning issues with multiref2 cites, but am stumped as to how to get all those cites to work correctly. Article still in Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors because of the 9 remaining Harv warning-issues in the multiref2 cites: #1, #2, #63, & #70. I am also cross-posting this post to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) to see if anyone there can fix these refs. - Shearonink (talk) 17:19, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Ok, I found out at my Village pumg (technical) post that the Harv warnings don't put the article into the no-target Category. I could use ref=none on those 4 refs but am wondering if there's another way to fix the invalid Harv warnings I am getting. - Shearonink (talk) 18:32, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

There's very rarely any reason to use ref=none. The only time I have personally ever found it useful is when we're wrapping a citation template with other material in {{wikicite}}, and we want the anchor to point at the wrapper template. As an example, from Golden field, we link to Liba & Ilany 2023 from various footnotes and then write the citation as:

• Liba, Opher; Ilany, Bat-Sheva (2023). From the Golden Rectangle to the Fibonacci Sequences. Contributions by Nativ, Isaac. Cham: Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-97599-9. Originally published as ממלבן הזהב לסדרות פיבונאצי. Tel Aviv: Mofet Institute. 2019.

But you shouldn't ever need to add ref=none to miscellaneous citation templates. There's no problem having extra anchors that aren't linked from anywhere. –jacobolus (t) 20:43, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Should we add a section on pencil-and-paper algorithms to Division algorithm?

I've started a discussion at Talk:Division algorithm#Should we add a section on pencil-and-paper algorithms?. To get some more eyes on it, I feel like I should post here too.

Currently, the Division algorithm article deals with algorithms, but only to the extent that they are implemented in pseudocode. There is no mention of pencil-and-paper algorithms, except in the hatnote:

 This article is about algorithms for division of integers. For the pencil-and-paper algorithm, see Long division.

However, long division is not the only pencil-and-paper division algorithm. There are also short division and galley division, as well as chunking. I feel like this fails WP:NPOV, especially if these other division algorithms are also still being taught and used.

There's currently no article that I can find that discusses pencil-and-paper algorithms for division. So I think it would make sense to include a section for algorithms for dividing by hand. Cf. Multiplication algorithm, which does include such a section. Edderiofer (talk) 11:26, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Kosnita's theorem and Lester's theorem

Doing some copy-editing work, there seems to be a nexus of citations related to Dao's work published in GLOBAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED RESEARCH ON CLASSICAL AND MODERN GEOMETRIES, which is on Beall's list and close inspection of that website is does not instil confidence.

If someone could take a look at those articles and see if those citations/mentions are warranted, that would be great. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:45, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

There has been a long-term problem with Dao unduly promoting his own work here in articles on elementary geometry, going back over a dozen years (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dao's theorem). It probably needs to be trimmed back again. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:46, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Funny how independent people unaware of this stuff still can sniff it out. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:26, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Questionable references

~2026-34856-19 (talk · contribs) has been adding questionable references (external links) to various articles. Supposedly an application of Fibonacci numbers (see integer sequence), but actually a dubious way to try to time the market for cryptocurrencies, etc.. JRSpriggs (talk) 23:13, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Just spam. Revert. I left a warning on their page, so if it continues we can block them. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:24, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

@David Eppstein Unfortunately, with these new temporary anonymous user handles instead of IP addresses like before, the user will probably not even see this warning, as the next time they log on they will have another handle assigned to them. I still don't understand why people thought these temporary handles were a good idea. Sigh PatrickR2 (talk) 21:22, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

And blocking a temporary handle wouldn't do anything, would it? PatrickR2 (talk) 21:23, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

WP:TA describes various anti-abuse features. ~2026-28744-62 (talk) 21:08, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

My impression is that there are cases where TA cookies will last longer than IPs, especially for IPv6, but more importantly, the TA system was designed to comply with certain privacy laws so not doing something like it wasn't really an option. Sesquilinear (talk) 21:27, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Even if the cookies are not cleared, temporary accounts expire after 90 days. I guess the rationale for this was that we did not want to create a long-term public pseudonymous identity for logged-out editors (there might be other technical issues that I'm not aware of). Whatever the reason may be — good or bad — in my opinion temporary accounts made it a bit harder for me when dealing with vandalism (e.g, people refspamming). Malparti (talk) 12:17, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

You could always make a request at WP:TAIV. ~2026-28744-62 (talk) 21:10, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Ah, I never thought of that. I don't think this would be very useful to me, unless there is an easy way to see all temporary accounts linked to an IP (which I guess there isn't?). But maybe I should look into this — thanks! Malparti (talk) 22:02, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

According to [2] it seems like this is possible with TAIV. ~2026-28744-62 (talk) 23:10, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Invertible 3-cells on Pseudomonad (category theory)

In a paper on lax monads, the $\leq$ symbol was used in the 3-cell diagram, so I replaced the symbol in the invertible 3-cells diagram with $\cong$. I referenced Lack (2000) for the selection of symbols. Should the label of symbols (${\stackrel {\cong }{\tau }}$, ${\stackrel {\cong }{\lambda }}$, ${\stackrel {\cong }{\rho }}$) be arranged vertically or horizontally? It's possible that the image changes haven't been reflected in the article yet.--SilverMatsu (talk) 02:58, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Reference

• Clementino, Maria Manuel; Hofmann, Dirk (2004). "On extensions of lax monads" (PDF). Theory and Applications of Categories [electronic only]. 13: 41–60. ISSN 1201-561X.
• Lack, Stephen (2000). "A Coherent Approach to Pseudomonads". Advances in Mathematics. 152 (2): 179–202. doi:10.1006/aima.1999.1881.

Diagram (wikimedia commons)

• Current version
• Previous version

"Final" thoughts on the pentagram map ?

Hello everyone,

I've spend some time in the past few months to revamp the article of the pentagram map and take it to the Wikijournal of Science. My preprint is on the final stage of peer-review (waiting for at least one reviewer) and probably won't change much. So, if anyone has a final comment to make before it gets published, feel free to share it. Also, I'd like to reopen the discussion about the assessment (after this talk it got C-class, but I think it improved since).

Best, Regliste (talk) 15:16, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Hey that's great — I will try to take a look. ~2026-28744-62 (talk) 00:25, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Help on Yvette Amice

I tried to improve on the technical contributions of Yvette Amice to p-adic analysis but this is not my field. Could somebody that knows fields and p-adic analysis take a look to see if it is accurate? or add at least add more precise wording. She is having some spotlight due to her place in the Eiffel tower. ReyHahn (talk) 10:12, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Rewriting the PDIFF article

There is an existing discussion at Talk:PDIFF about whether the current PDIFF article needs to be substantially rewritten.

The article currently presents PDIFF as a category of piecewise-smooth manifolds and piecewise-smooth maps, relating the categories DIFF and PL of smooth and piecewise linear manifolds, respectively. However, there is no meaningful category PDIFF with the claimed properties. In the literature, piecewise differentiable/PDiff homeomorphisms are used to determine a canonical PL structure on smooth manifolds, rather than a well-defined category PDIFF. In particular, PDiff homeomorphisms are not closed under composition. They do relate smooth and PL maps as composing by a diffeomorphism on one side and a PL homeomorphism on the other gives a PDiff homeomorphism.

I would appreciate input from editors on what to do in such a case. Should the article be rewritten around PDiff homeomorphisms and Whitehead triangulations, redirected, renamed, or handled some other way? I am considering a source-backed rewrite, but given that this would be a substantial change, I would prefer more eyes on the issue first. The Surgeon of Death (talk) 12:39, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Good catch by you and the IP. My recommended approach would be to remove the incorrect content by stubifying the article, perhaps keeping the relevant references and providing a simple definition of a pdiff homeomorphism, which seems on firmer ground in reliable sources. Then a source-backed development of the article would be great. If there is a good redirect target that already discusses pdiff homeomorphisms, redirecting could also be a reasonable approach. --{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk} 17:41, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

If you need more time to improve this article, you can move the article to a draft namespace, but according to WP:ATD-I and WP:DRAFTIFY, this requires passing the AfD. However, I agree with stubifying the article because this suggestion is for when improving the article takes time.--SilverMatsu (talk) 01:58, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Large cardinal check needed

I made many changes to List of large cardinal properties and the various articles it links to in recent days (beginning June 6), including creating new articles. Could any of you with expertise in set theory please check them. JRSpriggs (talk) 17:39, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

More specifically, please check: List of large cardinal properties, Silver cardinal, Indiscernibles#Applications, Erdős cardinal, Measurable cardinal, Unfoldable cardinal, Virtually rank-into-rank cardinal, Virtually extendible cardinal, Iterable cardinal, Inaccessible cardinal#Without the axiom of choice, Talk:Measurable cardinal#Why are measurable cardinals so strong?, and Talk:Inaccessible cardinal#Derivation of a contradiction from the existence of a strong inaccessible. Thank you. JRSpriggs (talk) 18:54, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I prefer to expand the article Large cardinal by merging List of large cardinal properties, making own section as "Properties". Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:21, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

You could do that merger. But I fear that doing so would make it more difficult to expand the list with more properties which is something that we need to do. JRSpriggs (talk) 13:57, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Guidance for new editor on draft article, re polyhedral conic sweep sets

Hi there! I've had a polite request on my talk page from a new editor, @ArcTanRootTwo, asking for my thoughts on a page they've drafted in their sandbox about polyhedral conic sweep sets, User:ArcTanRootTwo/sandbox. This isn't at all my area of expertise, and I wondered if anyone here would be able to assist?

They've noted, "The subject matter is mathematical and there is no question whether it is true or correct information but I am concerned that the article does not have strong enough footing in terms of outside references to be accepted, if you would be willing to look over it to help me gather whether it will ever be accepted I would appreciate the help."

Thanks in advance for any assistance, Chocmilk03 (talk) 21:23, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree with their concern. All claims in the article need to be based on published sources. If that cannot be done, then Wikipedia may not be the place for this material. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:37, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, this looks like a lot of "original research" WP:OR. PatrickR2 (talk) 00:09, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Gyrobifastigium

I like how this journal "Gyrobifastigium-based TPMS lattices with tuneable stiffness and energy absorption" by Stephen Daynes [3] covers the gyrobifastigium and its background. But unfortunately, it seems that most of the texts are copied directly from Gyrobifastigium, particularly in the section of the naming and construction. Is this normal? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 07:47, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@Dedhert.Jr I'm not entirely sure I understand your message — you are claiming that parts of the article by Stephen Daynes is plagiarized from Wikipedia, is that correct?

These are very serious accusations, so when you make them please make sure that you are factual and that you express yourself in a non-ambiguous way. For instance, your claim that "it seems that most of the texts are copied directly from Gyrobifastigium" cannot be correct, since Daynes' article is more than 7000 words long whereas the Wikipedia article you liked is less than 600 words long. So at best a small fraction of Daynes' article (<10%) could come from the Wikipedia article.

I looked into this in a bit more detail, and as far as I can tell it seems that 4 sentences (totalling a bit less than 50 words, i.e. less than 1% of the body of the article) are more-or-less identical to the Wikipedia article, namely:

• "The name of the gyrobifastigium comes from the Latin fastigium, meaning a sloping roof."
• "In the standard naming convention of the Johnson solids, bi- means two solids connected at their bases, and gyro- means the two halves are twisted with respect to each other."
• "The gyrobifastigium is constructed by connecting two triangular prisms along corresponding square faces, giving a quarter-turn to one prism."
• "The prisms cover the square faces, so the resulting polyhedron has four equilateral triangles and four squares, making eight faces in total, an octahedron."

I isolation, I think each of these near-identical sentences could be due to chance — there are not 10000 ways to say that "the name of the gyrobifastigium comes from the Latin fastigium, meaning a sloping roof". However, I agree that to me, the fact that happens 4 times looks a bit suspicious. I don't think this is a huge problem, because those sentences cover general background information; but that is indeed something worth looking into; for instance, are other sentences of the article copied from somewhere else?

Also, note that the fact that some sentences are identical do not necessarily indicates that the content has been copied from Wikipedia; for instance:

• it could come from other sources;
• it could have been generated by a LLM that had the Wikipedia article in its training set;
• Daynes might have written these sentences on Wikipedia (that's easy to check).

To answer your original question:

1. I don't think this is a problem for Wikipedia, but that might be worth looking into. For instance, seems that the text of the article is under a CC BY 4.0 license, in which case the Wikipedia article should probably be listed as a source for things to be OK...
2. I've no idea whether this could be a problem for the journal. Maybe you could reach out to Stephen Daynes to express your concerns and ask for clarifications, and point him to this Wikipedia discussion? You could also write directly to the journal editor, but that's probably a bit too much for 4 sentences. I'd advise you to try to do things in a friendly manner first.

Cheers, Malparti (talk) 16:16, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Usually the correct response when we see journal articles that appear to copy from us, like this one, is: don't use that article as a reference, per WP:CIRCULAR. Yes, there may be a legal issue but it's not really worth pursuing it. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:25, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@Malparti. Oh yeah. I must aware of my words. So let me rephrase: the journal copied most of the texts in the section of "Naming and construction" and "Properties" in Gyrobifastigium, worth it to use as a citation? You and David Eppstein have already answered this.

@David Eppstein. Still, but can I use it for citing in other articles like Elongated gyrobifastigium? Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:27, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Hall of Shame candidate

Can anyone tell me what the approximate meaning of the first sentence of Θ10 is, or why anyone would care?

The first sentence is: "In representation theory, a branch of mathematics, θ₁₀ is a cuspidal unipotent complex irreducible representation of the symplectic group Sp₄ over a finite, local, or global field."

For example: Is θ₁₀ a complex number? A vector? Something else? Does it get used in any practical way (where things like searching for Russell's teapot count as practical, but being a really cool mathematical concept is instead more decorative than practical)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:24, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

If you recognized the phrase "representation theory" you would know that it is a way of realizing an abstract group as a group of linear transformations, and then the other words tell you more specific things about that realization. If you do not recognize the phrase "representation theory" you are supposed to at least recognize that "In [something I don't understand], a branch of mathematics, X is..." is going to introduce something mathematical that you also aren't going to understand, and that maybe to find out what it is you should start by reading other material until you have some idea what representation theory is. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:37, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Merely "reading other material" is not a realistic or proportionate way for ordinary readers to understand anything about abstract algebraic. They would generally have to do somewhere between six and ten years of "reading other material" to reach this point.

If we can't say what it is (e.g., "it's a number" or "it's a set of equations"), can we explain why it matters? Most math is useful for something (e.g., "used to calculate the decay of radioactive materials" or "simplifies some calculations involved in estimating the shape of the universe"). What's this useful for? Has it ever been used for anything? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:55, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

It's an isomorphism between an abstract group and a group of linear transformations. As you would learn if you drilled down through the first linked term: "In essence, a representation makes an abstract algebraic object more concrete by describing its elements by matrices".

Perhaps we need an article how to read mathematics. It is common and expected to encounter terms that one does not understand. Strategies for responding to this include drilling down through those terms (as above), or skimming over them to get the overall gist of the matter, figuring out what you think you need to know, and repeating. A strategy that does not work is to expect everything to be described in elementary terms from the start; that way leads to hundreds of pages of dense notation just to state that 1+1=2. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:05, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

About 10% of US adults can handle math at PIAAC level 4, which involves "analysis and more complex reasoning about quantities and data; statistics and chance; spatial relationships; and change, proportions and formulas". Abstract algebra is significantly beyond even that point.

The problem isn't encountering an unfamiliar word. The problem isn't even someone saying "isomorphism" when "relationship" would be sufficient for the context. The problem is that a third of adults struggle to calculate a 15% tip, and we're acting like "Well, duh, if you don't understand the first sentence in Θ10, then just click on the link to Representation theory, and if you don't understand its first sentence, then just click on the link to Algebraic structure, and when you don't understand its first sentence either, then how about you go to university for a couple of years, because most universities offer classes on set theory to third-year math majors?"

It sounds like the opening of that article might be more accessibly phrased this way: "θ₁₀ is a mathematical relationship between an abstract group and a group of linear transformations. Used in the advanced mathematical field of representation theory, θ₁₀ is specifically a cuspidal unipotent complex irreducible representation of the symplectic group Sp₄ over a finite, local, or global field."

The second sentence is basically what we have now, plus an unfortunate WP:SEAOFBLUE, and I still have no idea when anyone uses this in the real world, but at least someone who has an ordinary understanding of math can make a guess about what a "mathematical relationship" is, and determine that there's something about groups and lines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:47, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

The article is no more technical than many other technical articles, Methyl carbamate for example. But whereas you would struggle to find a chemist who hasn't heard of methyl carbamate, I am willing to bet that fewer than 1 in 100 professional mathematicians have heard of theta 10. I am also willing to bet that the traffic at the former article is at least an order of magnitude higher than the traffic at the latter. Now, I do not think it is especially helpful to defend the article theta 10 in its current state, but rather to get some perspective on who its target audience might actually be. The topic is largely of interest to a specialist mathematician working in automorphic forms and representation theory. One level down is a professional mathematician without specialist training in automorphic forms, or a PhD candidate working in that area. Two levels down is a general PhD candidate. That should help inform both who the target audience should be, and at what level the article should be written. By this standard, the article is certainly not great, but there are a lot of other far worse mathematics articles out there. Sławomir Biały (talk) 06:10, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Θ10 gets about 2.5 page views per day, and Methyl carbamate gets about 12. When page views are low enough, we also need to think about Special:Random as a potentially significant source of readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:06, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

We should not pay any attention to people coming from special:random. They are signing up to get something that they may not be interested in or capable of understanding, and can trivially get to another random page. –jacobolus (t) 22:47, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

And in the meantime, we have an opportunity to teach them something about math, which I'm not inclined to discard just because they're not "capable of understanding" it. We should be capable of making technical articles understandable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

It's an impossible waste of your time and attention to try to make every niche specialist article accessible to a layperson who would need a decade of serious study to make any sense of it. If you want to make effective use of the same motivation, you should look for topics of central importance and strive to make them accessible to a reader who might plausibly care about the topic. –jacobolus (t) 23:59, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Jacobolus, you are understating policy. :) It is Wikipedia policy to write for the most likely audience of an article, preferably writing one level down to make things a bit friendlier. As far as I understand, it is against Wikipedia policy to try to make the article under discussion understandable to every human on Earth. Regards, Mgnbar (talk) 00:10, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that's my point. Which is why @WhatamIdoing bringing up the math preparation of 90% of adults who are unready for introductory college math classes and can't calculate their tips is a complete non sequitur in the context of an article of interest only to folks with deep research experience in a particular niche subfield. We shouldn't be spending extra effort satisfying every mystified reader who arrives via special:random. If we want to have high impact on making technical articles understandable, we should identify the topics of central importance which are currently inaccessible or incomplete and try to bring them to a polished standard aimed "one level down", especially the lead sections. –jacobolus (t) 01:11, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

There are many mathematics articles where it would be reasonable to expect someone with a high school education who struggles to calculate their tips to follow the basic idea of the lead section. But this seems like an exceptionally poor example; you picked a extremely technical and very obscure niche topic only of interest to people who have done years of postgraduate study. The widest imaginable audience for this article includes maybe a handful of physics PhDs or very advanced pure math undergraduates. –jacobolus (t) 06:23, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

I made a few esits, trying to improve the accessibility. It might be worth it if someone else could take a look. In particular, the unitary representation issue. I believe in all cases the representation is unitary or at least unitarizable, that usually is not emphasized in the literature. I put it in there because Eppstein's gloss on "representation" is somewhat wrong here: it's not realizing the group as a matrix group. Theta 10 is infinite dimensional in the local and global cases, and not even tempered in the local case. Sławomir Biały (talk) 07:26, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your improvements! The part about matrices was not my gloss, however. I was careful to talk about groups of linear transformations without calling them matrices. I think you're thinking about the quote from representation theory, not something I wrote. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:46, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

My mistake, yes I was confused. Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:56, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I think that made a big difference. In particular, I appreciate you taking the time to say how it's special. An ordinary reader doesn't need to know what the A, B, and C mean to grasp that it's unusual for having that particular combination of qualities. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

C. K. Raju

C. K Raju article has so many issues to improve from its primary and secondary sources issue and claims of his mathematical contribution and many more so how we can be able to improve this article. IndianWarriors456 (talk) 08:16, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Draft:Steven R. Finch

Considering that Wikipedia:Notability (numbers) cites Finch's Mathematical Constants as a default source for proving the notability of irrational numbers, I thought that it would make sense to have an article on the author of this highly regarded set of books, and have created this draft accordingly. This is outside my area, though, so if anyone else wants to pick it up and run with it, have at it. Cheers! BD2412 T 23:39, 24 June 2026 (UTC)

Note: Not to be confused with race car driver Steve Finch. Grokipedia rather hilariously has an article on mathematician Steven Finch that lists all the races he has won. BD2412 T 23:50, 24 June 2026 (UTC)