<<In a message dated 1/6/2009 2:54:03 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, cbeckhorn@fastmail.fm writes:
What would you make of decades-old papers that are well known and accepted by everyone in the area, but not covered by review texts because nobody feels a need to do so? This is the situation with much mathematical research.>> ------------------
Sure. 150 to 200 years ago, Sophie Germain published a very valuable insight into Fermat's Last Theorem. Her work actually is interesting for some other related equations as well. We mention this already, in brief, but some readers might like the complete set of steps she followed and their results. You can find hundreds of citations to her work, in both primary and secondary material.
The reason is because her work was important for an interesting problem, and we should report it. That we can easily find it cited in secondary material, then opens the door to provide primary source information, such as the full paper itself if we wish.
However, there is an article I was reading a while ago, about how common certain digits are in the expansion of pi. The general feeling might be that all digits should occur with an even chance, and the paper was discussing whether this in-fact occurred.
Interesting perhaps to some, but if no secondary source mentions it, even if many people have heard of this paper, then it probably wouldn't be appropriate for us to mention it either, thereby giving some obscure author credence on some insignificant observation.
Just because everybody has heard of something, doesn't mean it's encyclopedic.
An object takes on increased significance, with the number of publications mentioning it. Do we want a work that has a list of the 3 billion known stars numbers each with their own articles showing their apparent brightness, density and distance from the Earth? It would swamp the entire project. "Random page" would become worthless.
So we focus on what others have determined to be important, based on the number of citations to it.
Will Johnson
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On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 12:02 AM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
<snip>
An object takes on increased significance, with the number of publications mentioning it. Do we want a work that has a list of the 3 billion known stars numbers each with their own articles showing their apparent brightness, density and distance from the Earth? It would swamp the entire project. "Random page" would become worthless.
So we focus on what others have determined to be important, based on the number of citations to it.
Have you seen the discussion about towns and village stubs on ANI?
Carcharoth
On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 12:08 AM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 12:02 AM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
<snip>
An object takes on increased significance, with the number of publications mentioning it. Do we want a work that has a list of the 3 billion known stars numbers each with their own articles showing their apparent brightness, density and distance from the Earth? It would swamp the entire project. "Random page" would become worthless.
So we focus on what others have determined to be important, based on the number of citations to it.
Have you seen the discussion about towns and village stubs on ANI?
Sorry, should have provided a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI#Editor_creates_100.2C000_or_more_...
Carcharoth
2009/1/7 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
Sorry, should have provided a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI#Editor_creates_100.2C000_or_more_...
That was a depressing discussion. The original post quickly turns into "I don't like what this person is doing! They're a vandal, some kind of nutcase! You need to block them now!"
Oh, how far we have sunk.
On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 07:02:47PM -0500, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Just because everybody has heard of something, doesn't mean it's encyclopedic.
Doesn't the NPOV policy, specifically the "due weight" part, demand that our articles include exactly those things that people educated in the field all know about, and avoid including things that people educated in the field feel are not important?
- Carl
On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 07:02:47PM -0500, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
Sure. 150 to 200 years ago, Sophie Germain published a very valuable insight into Fermat's Last Theorem.
It isn't necessary to go so far back. A large part of the important mathematics of the 1980s and 1990s does not appear in textbooks, or does so only implicitly, because there is little incentive for anyone to rewrite it. I believe the situation is similar in many areas of the humanities and social sciences. This has never meant that wikipedia does not want to include this work.
- Carl