Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Mathematics

This is a collection of discussions on the deletion of articles related to Mathematics. It is one of many deletion lists coordinated by WikiProject Deletion sorting. Anyone can help maintain the list on this page.

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Mathematics

List of humorous names in mathematics

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Essentially WP:OR, personal taste (or lack of it) whether something is "humorous" ("killing field", hilarious; "mother functor", if you pronounce it completely wrong it almost sounds like, well, you guessed it) and not a defining characteristic for most of these. Fram (talk) 14:48, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language, Mathematics, and Lists. Fram (talk) 14:48, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Rename to List of unusual names in mathematics or Draftify as a new Category:Unusual names in mathematics. Describing the terms as humorous is subjective, but there is agreement among WP:RS that these terms are unusual. TurboSuperA+_(connect) 15:53, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Happy to do that WikiNukalito (talk) 19:38, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is obviously subjectivity in humour, but firstly there are numerous compilations of these online, even in fairly reputable places refs 1,2,3,4; secondly many of them are deliberate jokes e.g. look at the name origin section on Cox–Zucker machine and lastly there are similar pages e.g. in mathematics Mathematical joke or elsewhere Lists of pejorative terms for people where inclusion or exclusion of examples can't be completely objective.

Feel free to change the list, but you know, have some fun too. WikiNukalito (talk) 15:57, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete pure WP:OR. Azuredivay (talk) 19:14, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would you also delete this article? Obviously more developed than this one but basically the same idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humorous_units_of_measurement WikiNukalito (talk) 19:56, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Angus Taylor (disambiguation)

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Unnecessary disambiguation page. Only two people with an article with a primary topic. The other two listed are a non notable musician and a non notable character. Servite et contribuere (talk) 07:54, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Politicians, Music, Mathematics, Disambiguations, Australia, and United States of America. Servite et contribuere (talk) 07:54, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Not all DAB entries need to be articles themselves. It is plausible that someone searching for "Angus Taylor" might mean either the Magic Gang musician or the Halloween character, so merely hatnoting between Angus Taylor and Angus Ellis Taylor would be insufficient. That said, the Halloween character link should be through a redirect to section per MOS:DABREDIR. I'll do that. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 10:42, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Tamzin. Preimage (talk) 16:38, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep dab with four valid entries (one without his own bluelink but nevertheless passing WP:DABMENTION). —David Eppstein (talk) 00:03, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per above. ToadetteEdit (7M articles) 20:01, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Generalized game theory

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This concept doesn't seem to meet notability guidelines, since most of the articles that talk about this concept are from the authors themselves. The current sentence in the lead "The theory was developed by Tom R. Burns, Anna Gomolinska, and Ewa Roszkowska but has not had great influence beyond these immediate associates" is especially problematic for a Wikipedi article.

However, the article has a lot of content and has been around since 2008, so it could benefit from a deeper look from the community to validate this 7804j (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Economics and Mathematics. 7804j (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn by nominator. Will proceed to merge as proposed by another contributor 7804j (talk) 19:13, 20 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep - I wrote this page after AfDs for two other pages on work related to Burns. While the concept is primarily used in the work of Burns and his research group, it is used in multiple peer reviewed articles and represents a significant part of the research agenda of that group. The theory remains in use within that group (and even if it didn't, I'd still !vote wk). Smmurphy^(Talk) 22:43, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Merge: Since the concept seems to be almost exclusively tied to the originating author, the article contents should be merged to Tom R. Burns, who does have a wikipedia page. The concept on its own does not merit the page existence, as per nomination. Pragmatic Puffin (talk) 08:51, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's a good idea, so I'll withdraw my nomination and proceed with the merge 7804j (talk) 19:11, 20 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]

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 [1], 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. [2] (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: [3] [4] [5]. Two sources in the article are from 1999 [6] [7]. 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: [8], [9], [10];
- Springer: [11], [12], [13].

I've also checked Google Scholar [14], 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]

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]

Mathematics proposed deletions

The Taylor Prize in Mathematics (via WP:PROD on 17 May 2025)
ICTCM Award (via WP:PROD on 17 May 2025)
~~List of mathematical objects (via WP:PROD on 14 May 2025)~~
Chemical game theory (via WP:PROD on 12 May 2025)
Composition ring (via WP:PROD on 12 May 2025)

Mathematics miscellany for deletion

Mathematics redirects for discussion