Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Teakettle principle

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 delete. ceradon (talk • edits) 02:58, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Teakettle principle

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Nonnotable mathematical inside joke. When googling, of 77 results, if omit copycats of wikipedia and everything2, you will find only a handful of actual use, plus at least 4 other, totally different meaning of the phrase: [1], [2], [3], [4]

I can find zillions of jokes quoted in various books, but none of them become notable, for a simple reason: for notability purposes, we must have multiple sources which write about the subject in detail, rather than simply cite its usage. The very fact that nearly each time someone uses the term in a text feels obliged to quote the joke means it is simply a joke no one really knows. Compare with e.g., 'pigeonhole principle'. I've met people who use the term without even knowing what the heck it has to do with pigeons. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:25, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. -- Eclipsed (talk) (email) 18:59, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Weak delete. It's an important principle, but maybe not under this name. Google scholar and Google books only find this phrase in use in two books, and they don't count as more than one source for the purposes of WP:GNG because one of them merely quotes the other rather than adding any new material on this subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:39, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom, but if there is a suitable home for this article as a subsection somewhere else, I would have no opposition to merging it there. (can't find one right now, something like mathematical problem?) shoy (reactions) 19:07, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. <sigh> It is not a principle. It is a mathematician cracked a joke. I an popular math book. Another famous mathematician retold it. In a serious math book. That's it. Now what is the actual name of the principle in question? The fact you cannot guess it reminds me an old joke about another scientist who was bragging about his proofreading skills and challenged his colleague to find a typo in his fresh galley proof. The college glanced at the proof, chuckled and said yes, you missed a typo. The first one was all agitated, scrutinized the proof again and denied any. In fact the typo was in his name !-) So, what is the name of principle of reducing a problem to a solved one?..... It is called ...1 ....2 ....3 .... voila!... it is called REDUCTION! And it comes in zillon flavors. And Vilenkin's joke comes with a grain of truth: very often in maths it so happens a problem may solved by a reduction to a more complex one. But contrary to common anti-geek lore, mathematicians don't sit happy at that: they strive to seek a simpler and a more elegant solution. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:23, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Reduction is indeed a word for the same principle, but the only links on the reduction disambiguation page you linked to that looks close to the concept are Reduction (complexity) and Reduction (recursion theory), and those too are too technical and specific (and almost the same as each other) to be a good fit for the general concept. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:56, 18 August 2015 (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.