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Should Wikipedia Allow Mathematical Proofs?
Beetle B. writes "An argument has arisen over whether Wikipedia should allow pages that provide proofs for mathematical theorems (such as this one).
On the one hand, Wikipedia is a useful source of information and people can benefit from these proofs. On the other hand, how does one choose which proofs to include and which not to? Should Wikipedia just become a textbook that teaches mathematics? Should it just state the bare results of theorems and not provide proofs (except as external links)? Or should they take an intermediate approach and formulate a criterion for which proofs to include and which to exclude?"
I hate reading math symbols in anything but latex generated documents
No problem for you then: Wikipedia's math content is exactly that.
I don't see why anyone besides the occasional Wikipedia purist of sorts would actually complain about this. It's convenient for proofs to be on there, and it's not like accurate information is degrading Wikipedia's "standards" at all.
Wikipedia has policies and guidelines for this. Include it if it's notable, and not original research, etc.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
As I've heard them before, the arguments are that proofs might:
PlanetMath has a large collection of proofs and more of an infrastructure for handling some of the above issues. I don't like their article ownership model myself; if someone has found an error I'd rather she were able to make the correction herself than bother me. But something like PlanetMath, a dedicated corner of the web for a free mathematical encyclopedia, is probably the way to go here.
Yea I agree, though perhaps the longer/more complicated proofs belong in Wikibooks.
Wikipedia discourages sub-pixel hinting, such as Cleartype, on screenshots. The rationale for that applies to math formulae too.
I think you'll find that the math and science articles that are impenetrable to you are on subjects that would barely get a passing mention in Britannica.
Some subjects are simply hard. Wikipedia, along with everybody else writing about technical topics, should follow Einstein's advice: simplify it as much as possible, but no further. On no account should precise but highly technical wording ever be replaced with vague descriptions in layman's terms. The latter should simply be used to supplement the existing article. Otherwise, many articles (such as those pertaining to quantum mechanics or modern mathematics) would be reduced to a small list of far-fetched, disparate "real-world" applications of the theories that at best explain nothing, and at worse give a misleading impression of the topic.
Also, it is much easier to add simple descriptions when the detailed and precise text is already in place than when it is absent.
As Jimbo Wales once said, Wikipedia is - as an encyclopedia - only one book in our "wiki library", and one book is not a whole library. Of course mathematical proofs are important and should be freely available, but so is tons of other sort of information, too, and we can't just put everything in Wikipedia. Wikibooks offers a place for some book-like-stuff (and I think mathematical proofs belong there). There are also other projects for different kind of information, like learning materials and dictionaries. We should start to transfer Wikipedia's success to other free wikis and projects.
Computer science is a branch of mathematics. Perhaps applied mathematics if you feel the need to make such a distinction.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
I agree with you, but it's worth noting that the Wikimedia spinoffs -- in this case, Wikibooks -- would fit the bill.
If someone actually worked on the Wikibook of mathematical proofs, it could be linked from relevant articles -- from the page of the mathematician who created it, or the problems it solved. Ideally, the bonus is that you also get a concise textbook of proofs.
Again, I don't see any good reason why this division has to be done, but there's more irrational admins willing to put in way too much work and politicking to maintain the status quo than there are people who want Wikipedia to make simple sense.
(Also worth noting: the WikiProject Mathematics page on proofs, the Article proofs Wikipedia category)
Computer science features empirical experimentation as well as mathematical rigor, making it a "true" science. Science and its relation to engineering has nothing to do with it. It's that simple.
After all, I am strangely colored.