Talk:EoM:This project

This project is based on an electronic version of the "Encyclopaedia of Mathematics", published by Kluwer Academic Publishers until 2003, and by Springer after that. The encyclopaedia goes back to the Soviet Matematicheskaya entsiklopediya (1977), originally edited by Ivan Matveevich Vinogradov.

The electronic version had its formulae written in $\rm \TeX$, which were saved as png images. On its way through the various publishers the original $\rm \TeX$ source code was lost, therefore, to edit a formula in one of these original pages requires to retype the code for that formula from scratch.

For the project, it will be of big help to transcribe the old pages. To make this easy, it was decided to use MathJax, which allows to use Plain $\rm \TeX$ or $\rm \LaTeX$ for formulae encoding.

Some help on this is given on the help pages.

The installed software and extensions for this project can be seen here. This collection will be updated and extended.

Comments

Please add comments and/or suggestions here:

This is a useful page, but it should be more visible. Maybe the navigation toolbar should contain it (among "main page", ..., "help"). --Boris Tsirelson 08:14, 14 December 2011 (CET)

I have added a link to this page on the Help:Contents page. Nathan Brothers 17:28, 16 December 2011 (EST)

---

The footer "How to Cite this Entry" is appropriate for articles, but probably not for user pages etc. --Boris Tsirelson 15:05, 14 December 2011 (CET)

I have transmitted your proposals to the admins. Ulf Rehmann 22:44, 14 December 2011 (CET)

---

I rewrote Measurable space; please look. In particular, in the bibliography I gave links to MathSciNet (following a suggestion by Ulf Rehmann); but for now they use my private template User:Boris Tsirelson/MR; if you like it, please move it into Template:MR (with needed changes, if any). --Boris Tsirelson 21:43, 20 December 2011 (CET)

Ok, I have made MR a global template and have added a ZBL template as well, see Measurable space. --Ulf Rehmann 22:53, 21 December 2011 (CET) Same for Tamagawa number --Ulf Rehmann 00:38, 23 December 2011 (CET)

Good news: even working with no subscriptions, clicking a Zbl link I still get a review, in contrast to an MR link (MR says: "For users without a MathSciNet license, Relay Station allows linking from MR numbers in online mathematical literature directly to electronic journals and original articles. Subscribers receive the added value of full MathSciNet reviews.)".

That corresponds to Zbl's policy: They do allow up to three requests even to non subscribers. --Ulf Rehmann 10:40, 23 December 2011 (CET)

Bad news: even working with an MSC subscription (via my university), clicking a Subject Classification link I get:

A username and password are being requested by http://ams.math.uni-bielefeld.de. The site says: "MathSciNet Authentication".

--Boris Tsirelson 10:13, 23 December 2011 (CET)

That is different here: Under a vpn connection I do get access -- even from my home notebook, and I can switch on and off that access by using or not using vpn (as it should happen). But: after switching on, I have to reload the EoM page before my browser realizes that access is given.--Ulf Rehmann 10:40, 23 December 2011 (CET)

And still, the MSC template is not good for primary-only cases, because the "ParserFunctions" extension is missing. --Boris Tsirelson 10:21, 23 December 2011 (CET)

Unfortunately that is true. An updated software version which should fix this hopefully will be installed in early January. --Ulf Rehmann 18:44, 23 December 2011 (CET)

Here is an MSC template which works correctly, but without #if clause: User:Rehmann/sandbox/MSC --Ulf Rehmann 00:33, 7 January 2012 (CET)

Wow! --Boris Tsirelson 08:16, 7 January 2012 (CET)

MSCwiki links added to help non MSN supported readers (not perfect for secondary MSC)--Ulf Rehmann 14:10, 7 January 2012 (CET)

Our readers

It seems, most of EoM articles are targeted at graduate math students and professional mathematicians; but some are accessible to an interested layman. I try to collect these; for now, starting on "A", "B". --Boris Tsirelson 10:36, 14 December 2011 (CET)

---

Absolute value + Additivity + Algebra + Algebra, fundamental theorem of + Algebra of sets + Analytic geometry + Arabic numerals + Arithmetic mean + Arithmetic root + Assertion + Associativity + Axiomatic method

Ball + Bayes formula + Bell inequalities + Benford law + Bernoulli experiment + Bernoulli random walk + Bertrand paradox + Binary tree + Binomial distribution + Bit

---

Should we introduce (two or more) levels, and mark articles accordingly? --Boris Tsirelson 11:17, 15 December 2011 (CET)

I am not sure. Maybe it is good to just have a list (category) of articles which are suited for non professionals, in order to attract such readers. --Ulf Rehmann 13:21, 15 December 2011 (CET)

Preferred style

Many articles have (near the end) the section "Comments" (and often also the second "References" section after "Comments"). What does it mean? And should we follow this pattern when editing and creating articles? --Boris Tsirelson 11:22, 15 December 2011 (CET)

This is due to the history of the encylopaedia. It underwent various (print and electronic) editions, which not always resulted in a rewrite of an article, but just in an update by amending a comment (sometimes there are several, each with its own reference list). There is no need to follow this pattern now since wikipedia does allow better ways of updating.--Ulf Rehmann 13:21, 15 December 2011 (CET)

---

I guess, some day the use of our new templates will become a part of recommendations posted on our help pages. Here is another question of style.

I observe a typical pattern in the existing articles: the title, mentioning a notion, is immediately continued by the definition of the notion. Sometimes a slanted text in between gives some context or some synonims.

I propose to use a definition style using a complete sentence with predicate consisting of copula+predicative, as this is common in (written) English. Synonyms could be given, maybe after a prefix "also:" and with an extra page for that synonym referencing to the actual page.Context extensions of some notion should be given within the text, if there is no need to distinguish against other uses of that notion, in which case a disambiguation page should be used. See below my suggestions.--Ulf Rehmann 19:43, 23 December 2011 (CET)

Examples:

Binary relation

A two-place [[Predicate|predicate]] on a given set.

Preferable: A binary relation is a two-place [[Predicate|predicate]] on a given set.--Ulf Rehmann 19:43, 23 December 2011 (CET)

Spectral density

of a stationary stochastic process or of a homogeneous random field in n-dimensional space

The [[Fourier transform|Fourier transform]] of the covariance function of a stochastic process which is stationary in the wide sense...

Preferable: In this article, the spectral density of a stationary stochastic process or of a homogeneous random field in n-dimensional space is described.--Ulf Rehmann 19:43, 23 December 2011 (CET)

Inter-quantile width

inter-quantile distance, inter-quantile range

Preferable: Also: inter-quantile distance, inter-quantile range --Ulf Rehmann 19:43, 23 December 2011 (CET)

The difference between the lower and upper quantiles of the same level (cf. [[Quantile|Quantile]]).

But in rare cases the definition appears much later (as in Berwald connection).

Maybe here a link to the text part giving the formal definition could be placed under the title.--Ulf Rehmann 19:43, 23 December 2011 (CET)

On Wikipedia the pattern of the beginning is different: the title is not a part of the definition; an example:

Binary relation

In [[mathematics]], a '''binary relation on''' a [[set (mathematics)|set]] ''A'' is a collection of [[ordered pair]]s of elements of ''A''.

Thus, what is our preferred style for the start of an article? --Boris Tsirelson 17:28, 23 December 2011 (CET)

Since our language is English, we should use full sentences for definitions, as said above.--Ulf Rehmann 19:43, 23 December 2011 (CET)

Subject classification

What I find more important is to classify articles by MSC (Mathematical Subject Classification) and possibly categorize them according to that. This classification should be done so that it is easily recognizable by bots collecting bibliographic info. Of course MSC is subject to change over time, and there should be a tool to update such a classification easily over the whole collection. (We are lucky, since such a change did just happen via MSC 2000 --> MSC 2010.) Does anybody know if there exist wikimedia extensions which do support a suitable classification (and possibly its update)?--Ulf Rehmann 13:21, 15 December 2011 (CET)

For now I added MSC codes to our categories. It will be much easier to update categories than all articles. About bots collecting bibliographic info, I have no idea. But probably a template can help. Do you know which text should appear on articles to this end? Boris Tsirelson 20:51, 15 December 2011 (CET)

Some html meta tag would do the job like

<meta name="description" content="2010 Mathematics Subject Classifiction 20-XXX" />

and

<meta name="keywords" content="associative algebras, Galois theory, ..." />.

But I think that ought to be done on a pagewise basis. --Ulf Rehmann 12:47, 17 December 2011 (CET)

As an experiment, I added "<nowiki><meta name="keywords" content="probability" /></nowiki>" to the end of "Probability"; it is invisible, but appears on the generated html as "<p><span class="tex2jax_ignore"><nowiki><meta name="keywords" content="probability" /></nowiki></span></p>". Will it do the job? --Boris Tsirelson 16:39, 17 December 2011 (CET)

It seems one cannot put some <meta> tag outside the <body> section of some wiki page (unless there is some wikimedia extension wich helps??). So maybe you just omit the <meta ... /> tag. But apparently at the time being, Google's bots don't visit the EoM pages at all.--Ulf Rehmann 19:33, 25 December 2011 (CET)

Not quite so. I just took an old article (not "Measurable space", this is too recent), asked Google for "interest in abstract differential equations is that the so-called mixed problems" and got the first answer: "Differential equation, abstract - Encyclopedia of Mathematics". --Boris Tsirelson 21:13, 25 December 2011 (CET)

Too slow. On my preprint server, articles are recognized by google within a few days.--Ulf Rehmann 21:49, 25 December 2011 (CET)

It is rumored that Google, seeing a new page, returns to it after some days; if it is changed, Google treats it as volatile, and visits frequently; otherwise it does not. But anyway, (a) I doubt we can hope for a high Google rank, and (b) I doubt we can have many visitors. Just because mathematicians are a small population. Students are a larger population, but these are not our readers, I guess. --Boris Tsirelson 23:04, 25 December 2011 (CET)

But (a),(b) are true for my preprint server as well... --Ulf Rehmann 23:35, 25 December 2011 (CET)

Categories

Concerning categorization I propose to use the sectioning scheme used by the International Congresses of Mathematicians as shown below (I have added the respective two digit MSC codes - please amend/correct):

ICM sectioning scheme, cf. ICM 2010		Corresponding MSC 2010 two digit codes
1.	Category:Logic and foundations	03
2.	Category:Algebra	06,08,12,13,15,16,17,18,19,20
3.	Category:Number theory	11
4.	Category:Algebraic and complex geometry	14
5.	Category:Geometry	51,52
6.	Category:Topology	54,55,57
7.	Category:Lie theory and generalizations	22
8.	Category:Analysis	26,28,30,31,32,33,40,41,42,43,44
9.	Category:Functional analysis and applications	46,47,48
10.	Category:Dynamical systems and ordinary differential equations	34,37 (39)
11.	Category:Partial differential equations	35,37
12.	Category:Mathematical physics	70,74,76,78,80,82,83,85
13.	Category:Probability and statistics	60,62
14.	Category:Combinatorics	05
15.	Category:Mathematical aspects of computer science	68
16.	Category:Numerical analysis and scientific computing	65,68
17.	Category:Control theory and optimization	49,93
18.	Category:Mathematics in science and technology	81,86,90,91,92,94
19.	Category:Mathematics education and popularization of mathematics	00,97
20.	Category:History of mathematics	01

List of preliminary MR, Zbl, and MSC templates. --Ulf Rehmann 23:30, 12 January 2012 (CET)

The tableau (or some variants) has been used by IMU for the recent ICM section setup, see ICM 2010. (Cf. also: more verbal, ICM 2006, ICM 1998 --Ulf Rehmann 13:21, 15 December 2011 (CET), modified: 19:33, 25 December 2011 (CET)

A good idea; I shall do. --Boris Tsirelson 15:54, 17 December 2011 (CET)

I've made a template here and used it in Tamagawa number. It would be better to use the template "[ 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification {{{1}}}{{#if:{{{2|}}}|,({{{2}}})|}} ]", since the call {{MSC|11F70}} should not generate "11F70,()". Unfortunately, the "ParserFunctions" extension is still missing.

An "MSC" template is worth using, since (1) changing it one can change the appearance of all MSC at once, and (2) in 2020 :-) one can instruct the template to replace some codes with new ones. --Boris Tsirelson 16:57, 18 December 2011 (CET)

--Boris Tsirelson

I have set up some algebra (etc.) subcategories with some new template User:Rehmann/sandbox/MSCtop‎. (Eventually all the MSC templates should be combined as soon as we will have the ParserFunctions extensions or so.) --Ulf Rehmann 23:29, 7 January 2012 (CET)

We need an msc macro which automatically produces not only the entry+link for the primary/secondary number, but also inserts the respective [[Category:<blah>]] line entries to categorize the pages. But this requires (at least) the ParserFunctions extensions, maybe more.--Ulf Rehmann 00:35, 8 January 2012 (CET)

The existing MSC template does not work correctly for such cases as [ 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification MSN: 60-01 | MSCwiki: 60-01  ]. --Boris Tsirelson 13:09, 12 January 2012 (CET)

Yes, I know. That cannot be resolved without "#if"-clause, so I drafted another template User:Rehmann/sandbox/MSC-X for this special purpose (middle entry an hyphen '-') (and nagged the sysadmins again for installing #if). --Ulf Rehmann 16:44, 12 January 2012 (CET)

Here is a list of all the (preliminary) MR. ZBL, and MSC templates. --Ulf Rehmann 23:26, 12 January 2012 (CET)

ParserFunctions works! Wow! --Boris Tsirelson 09:43, 19 January 2012 (CET)

Yes, that's good. It also offers some nice string handling functions. For further new extensions, see Special:version.--Ulf Rehmann 11:07, 19 January 2012 (CET)

References

Now, having ParserFunctions, we can choose a style for refs (and support it by templates).

For now refs are coded like that:

<table><TR><TD valign="top">[1]</TD> <TD  valign="top">
H. Cartan,   S. Eilenberg,   "Homological algebra" ,  Princeton Univ. Press  (1956)
</TD></TR><TR><TD  valign="top">[2]</TD> <TD valign="top">
A. Grothendieck,    "Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique"  ''Tohoku Math. J.'' ,  '''9'''  (1957)  pp. 119–221
</TD></TR></table>

and rendered like that:

[1]	H. Cartan, S. Eilenberg, "Homological algebra" , Princeton Univ. Press (1956)
[2]	A. Grothendieck, "Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique" Tohoku Math. J. , 9 (1957) pp. 119–221

At least, we can create template(s) that save us the trouble of writing all these "<table><TR><TD..."

The best is probably the $\LaTeX$-like automatic numbering; but I doubt we can do it. If we cannot, then articles are not easily editable (not quite "wiki-wiki"), since a new source inserted in the middle of the list requires manual change of many numbers (both in the refs list and, worse, throughout the article). I did it several times working on "Measurable space"; not nice. No wonder that linking by numbers is not used on Wikipedia. On the other hand, our articles tend to be much less volatile than these of Wikipedia. Any comment?

--Boris Tsirelson 12:38, 19 January 2012 (CET)

The mediawiki equvalent of the table above is

{|
|-
|valign="top"|[1]||valign="top"| H. Cartan, S. Eilenberg, "Homological algebra" , Princeton Univ. Press (1956)
|-
|valign="top"|[2]||valign="top"| A. Grothendieck, "Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique" ''Tohoku Math. J.'' , '''9''' (1957) pp. 119 221
|-
|} 

which looks much easier and renders like this:

[1]	H. Cartan, S. Eilenberg, "Homological algebra" , Princeton Univ. Press (1956)
[2]	A. Grothendieck, "Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique" Tohoku Math. J. , 9 (1957) pp. 119 221

In fact, the strings |valign="top" probably can be omitted:

[1]	H. Cartan, S. Eilenberg, "Homological algebra" , Princeton Univ. Press (1956)
[2]	A. Grothendieck, "Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique" Tohoku Math. J. , 9 (1957) pp. 119 221

However, this concept conflicts with our earlier convention to use '|' as a separator between MR and Zbl numbers. Maybe that should be modified.

--Ulf Rehmann 20:55, 19 January 2012 (CET)

If you want automatic numbering, why not simply:

1. H. Cartan, S. Eilenberg, "Homolthogical algebra" , Princeton Univ. Press (1956)
2. A. Grothendieck, "Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique" Tohoku Math. J. , 9 (1957) pp. 119 221

But why numbering at all? As has been said above: If there are references by number then automatic numbering (or manual renumbering) requires changing of the references, too, and if there are no references numbers are not used. In the text, references like (Cartan-Eilenberg, 1956) are more friendly to the reader. Personally, I prefer bibliographies in chronological order, possibly split in recommended reading, references, and historical sources.

--Peter Schmitt 23:35, 19 January 2012 (CET)

One may want numbered or labeled references, since this allows precise referencing, like "Thm. 1: <blah>. For proof cf. [42, p. 456f]" or the like. --Ulf Rehmann 00:35, 20 January 2012 (CET)

"Thm. 1: <blah>. For proof cf. [Cartan-Eilenberg, p. 456f]" is only slightly longer, carries the same information, and may often be understood without looking on the references. --Peter Schmitt 02:37, 20 January 2012 (CET)