Ray Saintonge wrote:
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
geni wrote
On 10/14/06, Bogdan Giusca liste@dapyx.com wrote:
Should we have a category which says that the subject of the article (a mathematician) collaborated with another mathematician who collaborated with another mathematician who collaborated with with another mathematician who collaborated with Hungarian mathematician Paul Erd?s?
Well, according to the apparent CfD result, we should.
False the existance of a category does not mean that we should have articles on everything that could fall within that category.
That's a misapprehension of what this is about.
I'd have voted for deletion myself. This is about as pop-cultural as mathmos get (I danced with a man who danced with a girl who danced with the Prince of Wales).
Not so. It's a lot like actor's Bacon numbers: Meeting someone is one thing, but co-author a mathematical paper or acting alongside them is slightly less trivial than that.
It's important to put the emphasis on the word "slightly" in that last comment. I have a priestly cousin who likes to hand out pictures of himself shaking hands with the late pope. He gave me one of those pictures. This would give me a degree of separation from JP2 of 2. Speaking as a person who usually favours inclusionist policies, could we consolidate these templates into one about degrees of triviality?
Ec
I think comparisons to things like this or "dancing with XXX" or "having meet YYY" are not accurate. This is a verifiable part of the mathematical subculture. Just because it is not (aside form the calculation) mathematical in nature does not mean that it does not say a lot about that sub-culture.
I have mixed feelings about the categories, but I think it is a significant and notable thing to include. This is probably a good compromise, as putting such things in the article itself (even in a box) would be I think giving it too much significance.
I like to think of categories in terms of "would someone ever be interested in finding articles with this". In this case I think the answer is with out a doubt yes.
SKL