Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tupper's self-referential formula

Tupper's self-referential formula

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This function suffers from lack of notability. The formula itself does nothing spectacular; only interpreting constants as bitmaps pixel-by-pixel. The constant itself is just a bitmap of the formula encoded as an integer. The formula itself does not output this constant, and thus is roughly as self-referential as the "echo" command is in unix when given the input "echo". I have put to question this article's notability back in November, but there has been little relevant discussion on the corresponding part of the article's talk page. Cachedio (talk) 05:57, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - the article acknowledges that "self-referential" is a misnomer, and describes accurately what the formula does; whether the formula is of dubious value shouldn't have too much bearing on its notability. I've seen it referred to enough for me to think it notable. Elzbenz (talk) 08:51, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Nordic Dragon 10:24, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Nordic Dragon 10:24, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - I think that in the end whether something is significant in itself does make a difference. This is plainly not ("bogus" is another description), and everything these days gets a certain amount of attention. So unless there are clear source indicating attention at the "notable" level (whatever that means exactly), I do not think this deserves an article. Imaginatorium (talk) 11:35, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep - I'm not sure whether this has been referenced anywhere, but look at 544 digit number given on the talk page (4858450636189713423582095962494202044581400587983244549483093085061934704708809928450644769865524364849997247024915119110411605739177407856919754326571855442057210445735883681829823754139634338225199452191651284348332905131193199953502413758765239264874613394906870130562295813219481113685339535565290850023875092856892694555974281546386510730049106723058933586052544096664351265349363643957125565695936815184334857605266940161251266951421550539554519153785457525756590740540157929001765967965480064427829131488548259914721248506352686630476300). The bitmap outputted by the formula is a slightly compressed version of the number and importantly, it is the smallest positive number to produce this bitmap. Thus, the formula has potential applications in data compression. Any others voting Keep, please try and find sources for this. An explanation of my mathematical reasoning is published on my talk page. Anticontradictor (talk) 22:27, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just to mention that I think your mathematical reasoning is invalid. "The first 2000 digits of pi" uses 27 bytes to represent 2000 decimal places; this is of zero significance. You have not shown any way in which your example is different. And in fact this has already been dismissed -- the only question is whether the discussion of Tupper's formula has been sufficient to make it notable. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:23, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Whilst I accept your notability guideline, I think your reasoning could use some work as well. "The first 2000 digits of pi" could theoretically be interpreted in many different ways, and there is no reasonable algorithm that turns this string into the relevant digits, whereas my argument uses a mathematical, well defined formula. Anticontradictor (talk) 23:00, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 00:07, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:30, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. It seems to me that the question of whether it is correctly described as self-referential is somewhat peripheral to the issue under discussion. This formula is discussed in a number of "reliable" sources, such as MathWorld and the paper by Bailey, et al. That seems sufficient to establish notability of the subject, regardless of whether it is indeed self-referential. Sławomir
Biały 15:10, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]