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Should Wikipedia Allow Mathematical Proofs?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the great-now-i-can-fail-wikipedia-too dept.

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?"

4 of 469 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A mathematicians view by the_other_chewey · · Score: 5, Informative

    I hate reading math symbols in anything but latex generated documents

    No problem for you then: Wikipedia's math content is exactly that.

  2. Wikibooks by eean · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yea I agree, though perhaps the longer/more complicated proofs belong in Wikibooks.

  3. Mod Parent Up by saibot834 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:Sure by nebosuke · · Score: 3, Informative

    Computer science is a branch of mathematics. Perhaps applied mathematics if you feel the need to make such a distinction.