Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Mathematics

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Mathematics

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 redirect‎ to Rational trigonometry. Per consensus, restoring redirect. – robertsky (talk) 02:02, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Norman Wildberger

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Math BLP which was converted in 2022 by David Eppstein to a redirect to a book by Norman Wildberger. Redirect replaced by Ad Huikeshoven by one paragraph on the book, plus a cite to a YouTube page (dubious as a RS). Time for some extra eyes on the question of whether to enforce the (implicitly contested) prior redirect. Ldm1954 (talk) 15:16, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Ldm1954 (talk) 15:16, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 15:50, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Restore redirect. Wildberger or his employer have put out some heavily promotional and dubiously accurate press releases about his publications and the latest one that this is based on is just that, an inaccurate press release that some credulous sources have picked up (for a long but unusable on Wikipedia discussion see https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/114448643735756913). It does not contribute to WP:PROF notability and does not constitute in-depth independent sourcing. Repeating its promotional claims, which are not supported by his publication nor by mainstream mathematics, cannot be the basis of a good article. For another thing, although the paper itself is not out of the mainstream (neither in content nor in its publication venue), the claims made for it in the press release and copied into our article ("solving the world's oldest problem!") are WP:FRINGE and non-mainstream, as are Wildberger's own expressed personal beliefs. Fringe sources require mainstream balance to achieve properly neutral coverage and we don't have that. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:18, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Australia, Canada, California, and Connecticut. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 17:27, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect, as in status quo. I do not think that the regurgitated press release from unreliable or semireliable sources adds much to notability. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:21, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I edited the article. The reference to the book is removed. Wildberger is in the news for a recently published article on another subject than the controversial book. I added multiple newssources. I removed promotional claim. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 20:15, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you think removing the reference to the one indisputably-notable accomplishment of Wildberger, his book, is an improvement to the article? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:29, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreeing with David Eppstein. Without the book there is zero notability here, one paper that was published a few days ago is definitely not a pass of any notability criteria. Notability might be via a math paper which had 200 cites in other refereed articles in its first year following publication (an illustrative number). Ldm1954 (talk) 21:03, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Restore redirect All of the sources about the recent paper look to be pretty much trash. Newsweek has been a worthless rag for what, ten, twelve years now? And the rest are random websites basically reprinting a press release. The only actually noteworthy thing he's done has been the book, so this should be a pointer to the book. 64.112.179.236 (talk) 21:22, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Restore redirect please. No need to feed into any of the sensation-mongering. Rschwieb (talk) 20:31, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Including or excluding Norman Wildberger from Wikipedia has been, for some reason, a long-running dispute, lasting many years. I once, years ago, created an article with his name as the title. It was quickly deleted. I was surprised but decided there was no reason for me to pursue the matter. After all this time here is the issue again. I know Wildberger published a paper on some extension of Catalan Numbers. Maybe the paper is a genuine contribution to mathematics and maybe it will turn out not to be. However, why is Wildberger's inclusion such a hot topic? I really have no idea, but I wonder if there is a vendetta involved. Dratman (talk) 04:16, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your comment led me indirectly to recall Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Norman J. Wildberger. It was long ago and before the more recent publicity both for the current material and for his work on Babylonian mathematics, so I don't think it should be taken as precedent, but it does shed light on how long this has been going on and on the rationale for the redirection of your version, at least:

Creation of an article on "rational trigonometry": 2005 (at that time not focused on the book but on the mathematics it described)
Original creation of biography under "Norman J. Wildberger" (still visible in the history of that title): 2006 by Overlord~enwiki, immediately disputed as non-neutral
Rational trigonometry tagged as problematic based on using only the book as a source: 2009
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Norman J. Wildberger: 2009. I did not take part in the debate, but performed the merge that it called for.
Redirect "Norman Wildberger" pointing to same article created, 2010
"Norman Wildberger" split off as a separate biography, 2011 by Dratman, restored as a redirect by me, since at that time we had a recent consensus not to keep the two separate.
Meanwhile the article on rational trigonometry was long problematic and was tagged as having only one source (Wildberger's book) in 2009
Rational trigonometry acquired more tags including one for notability in 2013. More sources including book reviews were added, and this caused some edit-warring as editor Paul White pushed to remove any criticism from the main part of the article and link it only at the end. After more edit-warring by single-purpose accounts, SohCahToaBruz proposed that it be deleted in 2013 but Arxiloxos removed the prod as it was clearly not uncontroversial and had a previous deletion discussion.
In 2015 there was again a repeated attempt by some anonymous editors to remove critical material from the lead, and disputes over the placement of this material continued until at least 2018 when I semi-protected the article (allowing only long-term editors to change it for the following year)
In 2020 I took the initiative to change it from an article about rational trigonometry to an article about the book itself. I believed then and now that the book is clearly notable as the subject of multiple independent reliably-published reviews, regardless of whether or not any other related topics are separately notable. (I happen to have a copy of the book prominent on my office bookshelf but I hope the article reflects only the views of the published reviewers and not my own.)
Since then there have still been some disputes but overall the book article has been much more stable than the rational trigonometry article was.
Another creation of a separate biography (by another editor), restored as a redirect, 2022.

I don't know whether this history sheds any light on why this has been such a matter of dispute, but I hope it helps. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:26, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Restore redirect. It's definitely not impossible this paper could become notable but I don't think that what look like blog posts copied from a press release are enough for notability of the person. Sesquilinear (talk) 17:17, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The new work on the power series solution to polynomials is mathematically legitimate and pretty cool, though I don't know how important. It's published in the American Mathematical Monthly which is where the AMS puts articles of general mathematical interest that aren't too technical. I wasn't aware that he had written a book. I don't know what he means about not believing in irrational numbers, but that seems to be a thing with combinatorialists: Doron Zeilberger is very respectable, and doesn't believe in infinite sets (i.e. he believes that the set of integers is finite, aka ultrafinitism). Anyway I don't have any objection to keeping the article. I don't know anything about an earlier controversy if there was one. Wildberger fwiw has a Youtube channel with a sizeable viewership (127K, not bad for a math channel). I've only watched one video (the one about the recent work on polynomial solutions) and it was informative and watchable. 2601:644:8581:75B0:EDBF:1B48:1FC1:48B8 (talk) 05:59, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Restore redirect – Nothing about Norman Wildberger seems to even remotely meet the bar of notability. We need to be especially cautious of anything that is hyped in the pop-press, because this triggers a "this is cool" response in the enamoured who then include it in WP. (This is aside from the distaste that I have for self-promotion, and boosting his viewership through WP is just icky.) —Quondum 12:25, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Restore redirect - Notablility is not established with the sources. Certainly not enough for a stand alone article. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:56, 18 May 2025 (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.

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. Further discussion regarding a merge can be discussed on the article's talk page. ✗plicit 14:22, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nori motive

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Fails WP:GNG. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:59, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. UtherSRG (talk) 11:59, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Um, we have a textbook called "Periods and Nori motives" in addition to several other papers discussing the topic, independent of Nori (see also https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Nori%2Bmotive) So, the notability here seems clear. -- Taku (talk) 12:50, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: plenty of coverage in academic source. Just give a quick look to Google Scholar and Google Books. MarioGom (talk) 13:52, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep criterion 3 - no justification has been provided for why the citations present in the article do not allow it to meet WP:GNG. Stockhausenfan (talk) 14:29, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment this is certainly a notable notion but the article as currently written is useless and in particular 80% of the sources are not cited in the maintext. At this point i see no reason not to make this a redirect to a more general page on motives until somebody who is able to write a proper page on this takes it over. jraimbau (talk) 07:03, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly it's too short. But the point of a stub is that it can be developed further. For example, it's not easy to start a new page for anonymous users so just having a bare minimum page would make it much easier for them to provide more materials. The redirect is unhelpful since a general page on motives doesn't have any info on Nori motives. -- Taku (talk) 13:00, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So? Merge the content into the more general page and make it a redirect. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:11, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that's a good idea as the topic seems too specialized (if notable); a general page on motives should discuss motives in general, while a page like this can discuss more specific constructions. Details on the construction of Nori motives would be too distracted in the general page (and there is also a risk of undue weight if the general page spends too much space for Nori motives). -- Taku (talk) 13:15, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on the level of detail merged into the general article. Do we have a relevant article on motives? - UtherSRG (talk) 13:49, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, currently this article is very short so the merger is possible but in the future, we want to discuss a detailed construction of Nori motivies, I assume. And such a discussion wouldn't quite fit well into the "motive" article; too distracting and also there is an issue of undue weight. In Wikipedia, we often leave detailed constructions or proofs to specialized articles. (So it makes sense to have both general and specialized articles.) Taku (talk) 14:03, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The current article is 2 sentences. It would easily be a small section or part of a section in the proffered article. As such, I think merge to motive (algebraic geometry) is an acceptable WP:ATD. - UtherSRG (talk) 22:42, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
??? Regardless of the length, of course, a merger is an option in any AfD. The question is whether the topic is notable enough for a standalone article, or whether the article has some serious issues that are hard to fix. Depending on them, a merger may or may not be a good idea. Taku (talk) 04:07, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I stated it explicitly as I'm the nominator. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:09, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see. Thanks (it now made sense). Taku (talk) 13:21, 13 May 2025 (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.

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 merge‎ to Mental calculation. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 08:53, 23 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

13th root

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No reliable sources. Who am I? / Talk to me! / What have I done? 06:47, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Who am I? / Talk to me! / What have I done? 06:47, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Found a short article about this on Wolfram MathWorld, which is a reliable source. But it still may not meet GNG, and this Wikipedia article very likely contains original research. ApexParagon (talk) 21:27, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This topic + other mental calculation challenges seem like they would fit better as a subsection of the Mental Calculation page.
Delete There's no way to make a whole encyclopedia article out of this, as far as I can tell. The Guinness Book is a novelty gimmick that's mostly an opportunity for marketing stunts, not a guide to what serious people ought to take seriously. Briefly mentioning it in another article, like the Mental calculation one mentioned above, is the most that could be justified, and even that looks like a stretch. 64.112.179.236 (talk) 05:06, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep or merge to mental calculation. At time of nomination, the article had only a single source, an unrecoverable dead link from a student-help website, and included several unsourced claims that may appear to be original research (e.g. the last digit of the 13th root is always the same as the last digit of the power). However, a WP:BEFORE search was able to uncover multiple relevant sources, allowing the majority of these claims to be verified (see post-nomination edits).
By far the most valuable reference I found was the discussion of 13th-root-finding records, record-holders, and techniques in Smith, Steven Bradley (1983). The Great Mental Calculators: The Psychology, Methods, and Lives of Calculating Prodigies, Past and Present. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 129–131. ISBN 0231056419.. WP:GNG stipulates there should generally be significant coverage in multiple secondary sources (with a footnote that Lack of multiple sources suggests that the topic may be more suitable for inclusion in an article on a broader topic), and I think it's borderline whether this is met, as other secondary sources cover the topic in less depth: e.g. MathWorld's coverage is only two paragraphs long. Hence I'm recommending either keeping or merging, depending on how you interpret the line here.
If we decide to merge, mental calculation would be an appropriate target, given the existence of references like Butterworth, Brian (2018). "Mathematical Expertise". In Ericsson, Karl Anders (ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781316480748. with this as their primary topic, but which don't cover 13th roots beyond summarizing Smith (1983)'s description of Wim Klein's methods and achievements in this area. If we instead decide to keep the article as standalone, I think it would be appropriate to rename the article to something like "Mental calculation of 13th roots", together with adding a section on techniques based on Smith (1983) and the WP:ABOUTSELF sources Mittring (2004) and Lemaire and Rousseaux (2009). Preimage (talk) 20:36, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Addendum: I've just found Doerfler, Ronald W. (1993). Dead Reckoning: Calculating Without Instruments. Lanham: Taylor Trade Publishing. ISBN 9781589796737., which has a chapter on mental calculation of roots. While its coverage of roots of perfect powers is broadly similar to Smith (1983), this suggests an intermediate alternative: broadening the scope of the article to mental calculation of roots, allowing us to use this as an additional secondary reference. Preimage (talk) 21:02, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 08:37, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Mental calculation, don't really think many people will be looking for this.

Suggested steps:

Merge to 13th root to Mental calculation as § 13th root.
Redirect 13th root to the section.

Text in 13th root:

#redirect mental calculation#13th root SeaDragon1 (talk) 14:39, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Mental calculation or a similar target sounds quite sensible. There aren't many sources, and the interest in these roots is clearly restricted to their use in mental arithmetic. I think moving the material there strengthens the article on mental arithmetic, and it's very unlikely someone will come looking for the current article if they're not looking for it in the context of mental arithmetic. Wikipedia should be measured by the quality of its articles, not the quantity, and there's no point in making loads of mini-articles out of topics that belong under one roof. I'd suggest copying the whole of this into a section in mental arithmetic on "feats of mental arithmetic" of similar, for which thirteenth roots could be one of potentially quite a few sub-sections. Elemimele (talk) 13:10, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge as above or Draftify. Oreocooke (talk) 16:31, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge, yes, but don't lose this fascinating content. Hyperbolick (talk) 06:04, 21 May 2025 (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.

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The result was delete‎. ✗plicit 23:24, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

James A. D. W. Anderson

AfDs for this article:

Articles for deletion/James A. D. W. Anderson (3rd nomination)

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Mathematical crackpot with no meaningful impact on the field per WP:ACADEMIC, and no coverage in popular press since initial 2006 spotlight. Academic discourse on "transreal arithmetic" is mostly WP:SELFPUB, barring a couple of papers published in non-mathematical journals. Fishsicles (talk) 11:58, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Academics and educators and United Kingdom. Shellwood (talk) 12:31, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Yes, he does appear to be a crackpot. That might not be sufficient reason for deletion if he had a significant influence on mathematics, but as far as I can see he doesn't. Athel cb (talk) 12:53, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Compared to other fields, mathematics is much more tolerant of what would normally be labelled "crackpots" - rejecting an established axiom or theory usually means building a contrasting theory, which can be mathematically interesting in its own right. (WP:CRACKPOT's term for this would be "alternative theoretical formulation".) That said, "transreal arithmetic" has absolutely not developed into a theory of any interest to mathematicians, which means I'm more than comfortable applying the label.

I think a particularly useful point of contrast is inter-universal Teichmüller theory, which also makes dramatic claims that are (in the opinion of many number theorists) not properly substantiated, but remains of significant academic interest for its potential applications. "Transreal arithmetic" has attracted no such attention, and the only one to claim applications is Anderson himself. Fishsicles (talk) 14:28, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: This is indeed the third nomination of this article, but it is the first under this exact title: the article was first sent to AfD in 2006 with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Anderson (mathematician) (which closed with no consensus), and the second nomination in 2008 was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Anderson (computer scientist) (which closed as keep). (While James Anderson (mathematician) ended up getting deleted in 2006, that was at RfD after the article was renamed shortly after the first AfD.) No opinion on the current nomination. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 19:37, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Engineering, Mathematics, Computing, and England. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 19:39, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Not worth a page and it is more about Transreal arithmetic than anything else. It is a transreal page, in a sense. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 19:43, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: My concern is more basic than the issues raised above: there are whole paragraphs in a BLP that are unsourced. I'd be willing to cut down the article to a stub, but that would disrupt the discussion. Not sure how to proceed. Bearian (talk) 00:51, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 14:24, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete "Anderson has been trying to market his ideas for transreal arithmetic and "Perspex machines" to investors. He claims that his work can produce computers which run "orders of magnitude faster than today's computers".[7][12] He has also claimed that it can help solve such problems as quantum gravity,[7] the mind-body connection,[13] consciousness[13] and free will.[13]" So, first of all, yes, that could be straight out of Underwood Dudley's book. Second, Anderson made one tiny news/blogosphere splash nearly two decades ago, and there's nothing else to go on. This merits maybe two lines in whatever article talks about mathematical crankery, not a whole biography. 64.112.179.236 (talk) 20:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: If the article is deleted, this redirects should too, unless there's a bot that does it:

Perspective simplex Transreal number Transreal numbers Perspex machine Transreal Computing Ltd Transreal arithmetic James Anderson (computer scientist) Nullity (number)

and the link in James A. Anderson — Itzcuauhtli11 (talk) 15:06, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The past discussions are old but then so are the sources on which the article is based, so I think we can let their decision on the value of those sources stand. As for what he might have done since then, I don't see enough in Google Scholar to convince me of a pass of WP:PROF and I didn't find any recent news about him that might provide new evidence of WP:GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:16, 16 May 2025 (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.

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The result was delete‎. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:02, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Derived ring theory

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I'm having some trouble seeing how this meets any definition of notability (WP:N) when there are no hits when searching "Derived ring theory" in Google Scholar. Perhaps some parts of this can be merged with Ring theory and related pages. Afonso Dimas Martins (talk) 17:31, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 17:34, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The term does not exist in the literature, "derived ring" is used, but infrequently and in particular contexts. Викидим (talk) 18:39, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Term is not used in relevant field. Fails WP:N. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:11, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete As others have noted, the term does not seem to be used. Citations on the page that should be pointing to external sources are just cite notes making verification difficult if not impossible. As-written is also much too technical and may be too niche for an encyclopedic article. Anonrfjwhuikdzz (talk) 00:18, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Many of our serious math articles are written without any examples, especially when they touch the category theory. As a famous saying goes, "A monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors, what's the problem?" (for the avoidance of doubt, I am no expert in the category theory, but can understand this half-joke). This is just the style the mathematicians prefer nowadays, with our articles reflecting the real-world (IMHO, actually a problem in the real world). This approach of brevity and total lack of introductory context causes our mathematical articles to become totally unverifiable by any person who is not a true expert in a particular field. I hope for the author to come here and explain the text to us. Викидим (talk) 02:51, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are 30K math articles, of which over 6K are stubs, and another 12K ranked as "start". Almost all of these fail to include appropriate ledes, introductory paragraphs, never mind worked examples and articulated expositions. Personally, over twenty years, I've "fixed" over 600 articles by adding paragraphs, examples and rewriting ledes. I've done major rewrites of several dozen articles. The content here is not something you can flick off in an afternoon; its hard work, and it takes time. This article is a fairly typical of a stub/start-class article. It will take time to bake into something a beginner could hope to grok in short order. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 19:09, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Yes, the term derived ring theory is not used much in literature. But the concept, the derived version of ring theory clearly does exist; it's called under various names like derived commutative algebra. (Kind like, we have Timeline of category theory and related mathematics even though the term is not used much. Similarly, derived ring theory merely meant a derived version of ring theory.) So, it makes sense to have an article on the topic. We have derived algebraic geometry, which is closest but is the focus is different. Ring theory is already long so a spin-off like this is a good idea. -- Taku (talk) 04:16, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I have not managed to understand the article in the 30 seconds or so I have devoted to the attempt so I can't really speak to the subject matter. But if the name is not used much in literature, we shouldn't have an article at that name. I don't think the comparison with a "timeline" article is really on-point; in that case the word "timeline" is describing the article, not the subject matter, and is not in danger of creating a neologism. Would it make sense to move to derived commutative algebra, if that term is used more? --Trovatore (talk) 04:52, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  - I think Derived ring would be more appropriate, since this is not necessarily about constructions related to commutative rings. But for derived algebraic geometry, one usually uses derived commutative rings / derived commutative algebras. Here is a good 4-page introductory treatment: Notices of the AMS article. — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:00, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely that’s one option. It’s just there is also a derived noncommutative algebra of sort used in noncommutative algebraic geometry. So my thinking was "derived ring theory" can be a broad enough name to cover various derived generalizations of rings. If the neologism is a concern, maybe "derived version of ring theory" or something may be another option. —- Taku (talk) 05:04, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If "derived ring" is a standard term, then my concern about "derived ring theory" being a neologism is significantly lessened. That said, is there any need for the "theory" bit? If a derived ring is a well-specified sort of object, maybe lead with object, and discuss the theory in the body. As an aside, I've never quite made my mind up about object-versus-field-of-study articles. We have, for example, both group (mathematics) and group theory; the division of labor between them is a little hard to work out. The hatnotes claim that the "theory" article is "more advanced", but it's not at all clear why exactly that should be. Arguably the "theory" article should be more general in scope and more focused on applications than the "object" article. But for this case, it seems doubtful that there's enough material to split up that way. --Trovatore (talk) 06:08, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, "derived ring" isn't some well-established object studied by many. I suppose it's more like a platonic concept; people study something more tangible like spectral ring or ring spectrum, which are concrete incarnations of a hypothetical derived ring. That was actually a reason for the "theory" bit in the title (so not to suggest there is a thing called a derived ring). You're right that in Wikipedia we don't quite have a good naming convention for a topic in math instead of more concrete stuff like objects or theorems. That's probably not surprising given the encyclopedic (thus dictionary-like) nature of Wikipedia. -- Taku (talk) 06:24, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If no one can even come up with a standard name, then I have my doubts that this is a mature topic to write an article about. Even worse than a neologism is an article that abstracts out a concept not abstracted out by the sources. But as I say I don't really grok the topic (once I see the word "cohomology" I know I'm out of my depth; I should really find out what that's about) so I could be off base as to whether that's what's happening. --Trovatore (talk) 06:36, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have responded to this below. —- Taku (talk) 10:38, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Searching for something like "derived ring" algebra instead of "derived ring theory" will return the relevant results. Google Scholar results. — MarkH₂₁^talk 04:58, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have stated that above. A $64,000 question is, do these results match the subject of this article? Do, for example, the following definitions match ours?
- "A derived ring is a differential graded ring concentrated in positive cohomological degrees"
- "a derived ring is a commutative ring object in non-positively graded cochain complexes over k" (IMHO, these definitions point to a commutative situation only, while ours clearly tiptoes around the issue of commutativity, but then I am not an expert, and will happily accept whatever judgment the experts render)
It would be nice to add a cite with a chapter and verse pointing to our variant of the definition in any literature at the very least (and drop the word "theory" altogether). Викидим (talk) 06:36, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I wrote above, I deliberately named the article so it’s not about some particular object (e.g., a dg-ring, am E_n-ring, spectral ring, etc. etc.) studied in the field, which we might call the derived ring theory or some other names. What we have are various kinds of ways and attempts to generalize ordinary ring theory to the derived context. There is no one universal standard way to do that. I didn’t think and still don’t think having an article under some generic name means that that generic name has to be some specific math term referring to some specific object. While we may not have the universal answer to what a “derived ring” is, if there is sufficient literature on the topic (which seems to be the case), I think we can and should cover the topic (of course, I can see why others might disagree though). -- Taku (talk) 13:00, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. There is definitely an underlying topic, as others have noted (e.g., the derived stacks paper). This leaves a question of what to name the article. Here there seem to be unfortunate ambiguities. Such as I understand it, a derived algebra (or derived ring) is often just an algebra with a derivation. Perhaps an instance of "derived ring theory", but not the most general "simplicially enriched category of rings". On the other hand, the content of the article is extremely vague and not well-developed. I am left wondering specifically what the point is (how does it relate to the work of Maxim Kontsevich, for example.) The cited sources do not appear to support the overall subject well. I could be persuaded that either keep/delete/userfy are appropriate, but the article needs an expansion and rewrite. Tito Omburo (talk) 11:36, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment There being an underlying topic is different from an underlying topic having been identified in the literature. We should not abstract out an underlying topic ourselves; that's not our role. If an underlying topic has been identified in the literature, I would have expected someone to have given it a name. --Trovatore (talk) 16:59, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It has been identified in the literature, though, so this is unconvincing. E.g., Toën, Bertrand. "Derived algebraic geometry." EMS Surveys in Mathematical Sciences 1.2 (2014): 153-240. My comment is more that the article lacks enough sources and context to make this determination. Tito Omburo (talk) 21:00, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I just now added wikilinks and a note that places this stubby article firmly into the middle of a constellation of inter-related articles, including E∞-operad and A∞-operad and ∞-category and differential graded algebras over R and simplicial commutative algebras over R. This is not some topic sitting out in a corner of hyperspace, all by itself. Its smack-dab in the middle of a collection of inter-related topics. ncatlab has a matrix that covers the inter-relationships here: En-algebra. In short this is a stub, but it can be expanded with additional content. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 18:46, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete barring developments I haven't seen yet. Taku has been admirably straightforward in agreeing that no one has really pulled together this collection of considerations into a systematized whole. Doing that is not the job of the encyclopedist; we need to wait for it to be done in the research community. We don't have to lose any material; the subtopics can be treated in their own articles. We just shouldn't be the first to abstract them out into a common whole. --Trovatore (talk) 19:11, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: I've spent the last week reviewing, updating and fixing up every article I can find on stochastic differential equations. This exercise has taught me that there is a lot of overlap between various articles, often covering the same material, using different notation, and written to audiences of varying mathematical sophistication. Notable is that a "systematized whole" emerges only if you read the dozen or two of the inter-related articles; otherwise, the only picture that emerges is that of piecemeal aggregation by different WP editors adding individual sand-grains into their preferred sand-pile. More or less all of WP seems to be constructed this way: editors who "pulled together this collection of considerations", oddly failing to create a "systematized whole", except in hind-sight.

So when I look at this article, and specifically, the section named "Foundations", I see an editing pattern analogous to that seen in SDE's: some crumbs of information, arranged in a fashion that is similar to what can be found in other articles, but speaking at a different level of mathematical sophistication, using a mildly different set of notational conventions and terminology. It's an attempt to explain a collection of relationships. It's incomplete, its stubby, but also, there's no particularly obvious way of merging it into any of the other articles that it's linked to. What I'm saying is "let it grow". Much like other stubby or start-class articles in WP, let it rest as an accumulation point, a nucleation seed for facts to accumulate. I mentioned the ncatlab article, to make it clear that lots of additional info could be added; its not like a systematic description of this topic is absent. The info is there, its just not here in WP.
(Also, I think it's notable. Please note that Urs Schreiber is deep into a program that redefines what the notion of a "point" is (and I mean "literally, a point", like what Euclid talked about. Like elementary-school, high-school "point", now redefined as an infinity category), which then, like dominoes, percolates into everything. Sure, many decades ago, the theory may have started with infinity groupoids, but now, its redefining core concepts of what a topological space is, what a group is, what a ring is, what a vector space is, what an algebra is. It's a daunting program, because its highly technical. But its also exciting, because it's laying a brand new foundation. To me, this is captured in the moniker "brave new ring" given in the lede. (Its actually quite revolutionary, and the relation to the string revolutions is not accidental.)) 67.198.37.16 (talk) 20:51, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Responding to the first para: Just to be clear, I meant that no one in the outside world had "pulled together this collection of considerations into a systematized whole", but the article appeared to be an attempt to do so. If that systematization hasn't been done in the literature, then it shouldn't be done here; this was my point. Now Tito seems to be suggesting that it has been done in the literature, and if that is so, then I would withdraw the objection. --Trovatore (talk) 04:30, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think the above puts the issue very nice: we are at the moment when the history is being written. We don't know what the end product (derived ring theory) would be like but it seems almost guaranteed we will have something in the future. The question is then when is an appropriate point for encyclopedic treatment? For me, now is ok; kind like, it's perfectly ok to write about a developing event; Wikipedia is different in that regard from traditional encyclopedias. But clearly the others like Trovatore think otherwise. -- Taku (talk) 07:37, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My view is it's perfectly find to cover the parts, but we should not attempt to abstract a whole, because that could wind up influencing developments in the outside world, which we are not supposed to do. We are followers, not leaders. Yes, we can write about developing events, but only to the extent that it has been done in reliable sources. --Trovatore (talk) 20:47, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I basically agree with this. If sources cannot be found that directly support the text, it should be userfied (or merged to derived algebraic geometry). Tito Omburo (talk) 22:07, 8 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh! Yes, derived algebraic geometry seems like a good merge target! But since these days, (non-derived, plain-old-ordinary) algebraic geometry is two-thirds rings and schemes, putting the word "derived" in front of "ring" does not feel like much of a neologism. I dunno. Whatever. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 03:17, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First to Trovatore: I doubt Wikipedia is that influential :) Just having one Wikipedia article doesn't realistically and shouldn't mean there is a unified theory. I do concede the article title here can be misleading in that it hits such a theory. So, alternative titles like derived generalizations of a ring or something may be better. As the article "ring" is already long, it should be justifiable to have a separate article on generalizations.

As for derived algebraic geometry (DAG), yes, derived rings are often used in the context of DAG. But it seems some authors do study derived rings of sort on their own merits. So, I figured some spin-off article like this one can make sense. -- Taku (talk) 08:00, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think you underestimate WP's influence. Seriously. Using WP to affect things in the outside world is way too easy, which is basically why we have so many guardrails against doing so. As to your second sentence, I disagree; if we have a single article, it should mean that it is about something, and that something is not for us to identify and prise out. That should be done in the outside world first. --Trovatore (talk) 20:09, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete As cogently argued by Trovatore PatrickR2 (talk) 04:46, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Very well argued by Trovatore. I must have looked at this article a dozen times when I was reviewing it. I'm glad there is other experts. scope_creep^Talk 14:47, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Ring Theory This does not look like it is good for a stand alone article. Seems better in main ring theory article. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:06, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly the "ring theory" can be a place for the discussion of the topic this article is about. But as that article is long, it seemed (still does to me at least) to make sense to have a spin-off article specialized to the derived aspect in ring theory Taku (talk) 02:43, 14 May 2025 (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.

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The result was delete‎. ✗plicit 14:08, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Catalan Geode

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Entirely based on a single one-month-old primary source. Delete per WP:OR and WP:GNG. D.Lazard (talk) 12:43, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. D.Lazard (talk) 12:43, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: the primary source ~~has no citations~~ has not been cited. I see no notability here. —

Q

uantling (talk | contribs) 13:29, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi - the paper was published in The American Mathematical Monthly and contains numerous citations, can you elaborate on your comments? — preceding comment by User:Jasonbook99

I apologize for my ambiguously worded comment; I have modified it. Yes, I can believe that the primary source cites other papers. However, no papers have ever cited this primary source according to Google Scholar. If this result is notable, we need to have some evidence of that. —

Q

uantling (talk | contribs) 13:52, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. A brand-new uncited research paper together with breathless and heavily distorted press releases about it is, in general, not a fit subject for an encyclopedia. To make this decision we don't have to get into the question of how it could possibly be a principled hyperfinitist position to believe in infinite power series but not believe in decimal representations of real numbers (a very special case of power series), but if anyone is curious there's an interesting discussion of this work at [1]. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:22, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Newsweek offered unaffiliated coverage, but it seems premature to identify "Catalan Geode" as a distinct term fit for an encyclopedia. Perhaps enough coverage exists to convert Norman J. Wildberger from a redirect into an article that discusses this work and his 2005 book Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry, but I leave that to others' judgement. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 13:45, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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The result was no consensus‎. This is near a consensus to keep or merge the article, but the discussion did not get there. Malinaccier (talk) 20:53, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Solinas prime

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This appears to be a made up name and topic. Of the sources that have ever appeared in the article, it is attested to only in sources that trace the name back to this Wikipedia article, via https://oeis.org/A165255 . This is true both of the original topic of the article (primes of the form $2^{a}\pm 2^{b}\pm 1$ ) and the new topic (as of this complete rewrite from 2017). The PROD was removed by an IP who pointed to [2], a work by Solinas that does not use the name "Solinas prime". Any encyclopedic content from the sources without the hoax name could be included at Mersenne_prime#Generalizations (which already cites this source). JBL (talk) 22:00, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. JBL (talk) 22:00, 4 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
comment it seems there are a few mentions of this concept in the literature, e.g. [3] (I dont know how reputable Journal of Signal Processing Systems is but it seems reasonable to me) but most of the other ones are IEEE and abstracts, maybe someone with more training in mathematics could look whether this name is accepted in pure maths circles. It seems that at least some reviewers are not objecting to the name in engineering / signal processing. --hroest 16:30, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:21, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A search in WP:The Wikipedia Library shows a few papers about the concept. A google search show the concept precedes the 2009 wikipedia article. Examples from 2002, 2006 and 2008: [4] [5] [6]. Two sources in the article are from 1999 [7] [8]. I don't think the concept is made up. — Itzcuauhtli11 (talk) 15:23, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Solinas primes are a recognized class of prime numbers with applications in cryptography, particularly in ECC, among other areas. I found multiple high-quality academic sources in which they are directly discussed, including IEEE and Springer (WP:RS):
- IEEE: [9], [10], [11];
- Springer: [12], [13], [14].

I've also checked Google Scholar [15], which shows pages of academic results for Solinas primes, laying to rest any claim of them being fringe. NIST, the gold standard in cybersecurity, has also recommended Solinas primes for cryptographic protocols. This topic easily meets WP:GNG. HerBauhaus (talk) 13:46, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Sources given in comments show enough notability. — Itzcuauhtli11 (talk) 14:25, 13 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: @hroest, I've found some sourcing that may be useful for assessing the subject's notability per WP:NEXIST. HerBauhaus (talk) 15:00, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Mersenne prime. The article says Solinas prime is a generalized Mersenne prime. I see mostly primary sources in Solinas prime article and very few sources at all. Not enough for a stand alone article. Ramos1990 (talk) 04:21, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - (assuming it's authentic - I have not idea about that). I got to this page from Curve448 and it was useful for me (saved me a google / LLM search) 146.196.39.214 (talk) 15:09, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ambrosiawater (talk) 05:35, 19 May 2025 (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.

Mathematics proposed deletions

Igor Ivitskiy (via WP:PROD on 5 May 2025)

Mathematics miscellany for deletion

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