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Mathematics was one of the Mathematics good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones Date Process Result January 22, 2006 Good article nominee Listed May 19, 2006 Peer review Reviewed April 3, 2007 Featured article candidate Not promoted September 8, 2007 Good article reassessment Kept August 3, 2009 Good article reassessment Delisted August 26, 2009 Good article reassessment Not listed This article was on the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive for the week of May 23, 2006. Current status: Delisted good article

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Template:WP1.0 Mathematics B‑class Top‑priority This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of mathematics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MathematicsWikipedia:WikiProject MathematicsTemplate:WikiProject Mathematicsmathematics articles B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Top This article has been rated as Top-priority on the project's priority scale.

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The solution to whether to put "maths" or "math" first is just not to mention them at all. --Trovatore (talk) 15:03, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Paul August ☎ 15:45, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

17×19607843=333333331, not 33333331. 80.98.179.160 (talk) 15:51, 24 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I removed it. I did not check that error, but the strange formatting of the numbers made it hard to follow, the writing otherwise needed cleaning up, but most importantly it simply did not belong in the lead as an obscure, unsourced example, breaking the flow of the existing text.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:56, 24 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Were there not eight 3s ? The example is famous, and a good example of why proof is needed. The formatting could be solved afterwards, I didn't want to turn everything upside down. Boeing720 (talk) 22:14, 24 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is "the first" math article, or where to begin possibly. Just a lot of philosophy isn't sufficient. Interesting examples really is a good way in order to reach readers. Yes axioms are mentioned later, but that part could well have been deleted instead. Axioms are fundamental. Everything else must be derived (either from axioms or what's already proven). And at a certain level, there are assumptions. But just using words isn't helpful for our readers. I strongly believe examples are required, and as interesting as possible. And interesting at a level that reaches at least readers who have studied math at secondary school level. Lots of our "deeper" math related articles are simply just understandable to those who have studied mathematics for years at university level. But with examples would they become "within reach" for so many more. Assumptions belongs mainly at the very highest level, like that estimation of how often a prime occurs (don't remember it all), but it was an assumption which later was proven to be either far to high or far to low, regarding very high such numbers. But anyways, in this article I think that 31, 331, 3331 etc series really illustrates the importance of proof, even if assumptions also later can be proven to be correct. I assume, by the way, that most of our math-related articles just will be for the extremely few (also very few among math educated people, like engineers) if we avoid examples in hard numbers. All formulas are available at other sites, so why use Wikipedia (for math) if we don't (or won't even) offer something more ? (I have nothing against philosophy but that subjest can't be the main issue in this article) Boeing720 (talk) 22:09, 24 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Shall we add a section about mathematics education? Benjamin (talk) 02:48, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Why? I see no similar sections in any of top pages devoted to disciplines (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Sociology, etc.). As a math educator myself, I am not adverse to talking about math education, but I do not see such a discussion as adding anything to the topic of mathematics. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 04:48, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I thought it would be relevant. Benjamin (talk) 06:59, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Purgy Purgatorio: would you please explain why you rolled back these edits? They're small, mostly copyedits, but I'm puzzled by the rollback. Specifically, here's what you rolled back that I find puzzling: (1) deletion of modern Greek from the etymology, where it's not relevant; (2) fixing the use of St. Augustine's "warning" as an example of a mistranslation (the mistranslations, not the original text, are the mistranslations); (3) the ordinary phrase "takes a singular verb" instead of the puzzling plural "singular verb forms". —Ben Kovitz (talk) 09:00, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to paraphrase (3) and (1) in my edit summary, by using more than a "singular verb" in "singular verb forms", and by the use of "etymologists" to refer to the linguistically interesting remarks in the alluded section, which I restored. I think that the given information is sourced, is interesting, and belongs to the topic of this article. My intentions regarding (2) were to respect the weight of St. Augustine as a philosopher and the correspondingly widespread "mistranslation" by restoring the attribute "notorious". In my perception, "condemnation of mathematicians" is a notorious "misinterpretation" of St. Augustine's statement(s) caused by too literal a translation of "condemnatio mathematici".

I am myself puzzled about the possible intentions of your edits, and believe my partial rollback is reasoned and reasonable, too. Purgy (talk) 09:37, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Purgy Purgatorio: Thanks for explaining, Purgy. Let's take these one at a time, starting with (2). I agree that it would be nicer to retain the word "notorious", but I couldn't think of a graceful way to do that. The current version has two errors: it says that St. Augustine's warning was itself a mistranslation; and it calls mathematici a "notion", making it appear that a concept rather than a word is at issue. How about I fix these errors and leave it to you to find a way to weave in the word "notorious" without reintroducing these errors? (If I think of a graceful way to include it myself, I'll put it in.) —Ben Kovitz (talk) 10:01, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@BenKovitz:I apologize for not having answered your comment, but I understood your edits of the article as implementing your intentions, with which I did not want to interfere any further. Yes, I consider the notion, addressed by St. Augustine with the word "mathematici", as a concept, and therefore the word's translation to "mathematicians" is correct in its literal meaning, but is wrong in rendering the intended (by St. Augustine) notion, aka concept (Mit Worten läßt's sich trefflich streiten, mit Worten ein Gebild bereiten. Faust).

In a similar vein, I perceive a fundamental difference between "singular verbs", possibly denoting "always only one verb", and "singular verb forms", being explicit that all employed verbs are to be used in their singular form (see my earlier edit summary for multiple verbs, all in plural forms).

I stated already that I consider the content, which you removed and I restored, as "sourced, interesting, and belonging to the topic of this article". However, again, I will not interfere with your intentions beyond what I did already. Simply let me know, if you think I could answer further questions. Purgy (talk) 08:48, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your answer, Purgy. Unfortunately, I don't understand most of it. I hope I understood the part where you gave me the green light to go ahead with my copyedits. I'll do that next. Regarding "takes a singular verb" vs. "takes singular verb forms", please see this Ngram and this sampling of books written in English. A Ngram by itself can't settle such a matter, of course; it must be combined with experience and common sense. Hopefully sampling actual usage will help with that, hence the book search. Anyway, the phrase "takes a singular verb" is customary in English to name the kind of grammatical agreement that we're talking about; it does not imply that "mathematics" can't be the subject of a sentence with more than one verb. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 17:01, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In my last two (reverted) edits I did not intend to simply dispute B. Oakly in general, but to demonstrate that the ideas, which are excerpted in the article from the two references before my edits, (1) the claim about natural language, "where people can often equate a word (such as cow) with the physical object" and (2) the idiosyncrasy that in math a "single symbol can encode a number of different operations or ideas", are not undisputed in the scientific world. BTW, her claim of "multiplication being repeated addition" is also not accepted in the erudite math world.

I gave two sources and one obvious referral to the mentioned "cow", establishing the inherent incapacity of "natural languages" to unambigously identify physical objects, and cited from the "Begriffschrift" by G. Frege, more than two centuries ago, that any intuitive understanding has to be secured by strict formalism, thereby excluding any "encoding" of different concepts in one notion.

Imho, the given refs suffice to render the transcribed ideas of Oakly in "stark contrast" to other, relevant reliable sources. I am not after calling Oakly "generally refuted". Purgy (talk) 16:53, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In the article, there are three ideas attributed to Oakley:

1. Mathematical notation is more abstract than natural language.

2. Mathematical notation is more encrypted than natural language.

3. The greater abstractness and encryptedness are the reason why beginners often find mathematical notation daunting.

The first two seem self evidently true. The third seems highly plausible. I don't see how any of the three ideas "are in stark contrast not only to the rigor, which, in generality, all mathematicians strive for, but also to the inherent ambiguities of the natural languages." Paul August ☎ 18:45, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I explicitly referred to the disputed ideas, subsumed under your wishy-washy points (encrypted! in natural language), and do it again:

"... natural language, where people can often equate a word (such as cow) with the physical object it corresponds to, ..."

"... meaning a single symbol can encode a number of different operations or ideas ..."

"By encryptedness, I mean that one symbol can stand for a number of different operations or ideas, just as the multiplication sign symbolizes repeated addition."

The first two claims ARE in "stark contrast" to the sources I cited, the last repeats the opinion of the second, and adds elementary level teacher's misunderstanding. Purgy (talk) 19:12, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Purgy, I checked the sources that you provided, and they did not contrast Oakley's ideas about mathematical notation with mathematical rigor. On Wikipedia, we just summarize the authoritative sources about each article's topic; please see WP:V. The articles on requirements engineering were not even about mathematics as such. The Mathematics article is a general survey of mathematics; it should be a summary of authoritative surveys of mathematics. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 20:15, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I'm not sure that we should even be mentioning Barbara Oakley by name here. The salient points are just that modern mathematical notation is more rigorous and abstract than ordinary language, and that this rigor and abstractness often presents difficulties for beginners. The claim that the "encryptedness" of mathematical notation is greater than that of ordinary words sounds dubious, and the word choice is strange; normally we would say that mathematical notation is "equivocal" or "ambiguous". I haven't checked the sources about this, though. Are facts about Barbara Oakley (as opposed to mathematical notation) salient here? And does the claim that mathematical notation is more equivocal than ordinary words fairly represent scholarly consensus? —Ben Kovitz (talk) 20:15, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]