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Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics

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WP:WPM

The tesseract, the four-dimensional analog of the cube.
To see an animated version, click here.

The current Mathematics Collaboration of the Monthis Group (mathematics)Please help to improve this article to featured article standard.
Resources

edit Mathematics portal

How to help — open tasks and things to do

Contributors — a list of project participants. Please introduce yourself.

Articles

List of mathematics articles — containing approximately 19446 articles

Recent activity on mathematics articles

Editor resources

Mathematics reference resources

Mathematics editor resources

Manual of style for mathematics

Conventions — naming and terminology conventions

Subpages and subprojects

PlanetMath Collaborations

Math Wikipedia 1.0

Mathematical Graphics

WikiProject Mathematics Competitions

Discussion pages

Main discussion page

Proofs — discussion on proofs and proof style

Mathematics reference desk

This project aims to enable Wikipedians to cooperate, make suggestions and share ideas on the organization and improvement of the mathematics coverage of Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to join in this endeavor.

Many such suggestions and guidelines have been developed since the project began. A particularly useful collection can be found in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics), which contains a detailed discussion of issues related to writing mathematics articles on Wikipedia.

However, it is important for all of us to remember that these are only suggestions: they should help to give us focus, and inspire our contributions, but no one should feel obliged to follow (or even read) them. This WikiProject is not prescriptive. The suggestions are intended to be helpful for those who are not sure what to write, or how they can contribute, but they should not distract anyone wanting to contribute from our main purpose: to write and improve mathematics articles!

Project background and scope

This WikiProject began in 2002 to assist the creation, improvement and organization of articles in the area of mathematics. The initial goals of the project were to provide:

  • a standard "bare bones" format for mathematical articles
  • useful links for article writers
  • a location to discuss issues relating to this section of Wikipedia
  • standards for mathematical notation using wikified HTML and TeX.

In its broadest terms, mathematics includes its overlaps with physics, computer science, operations research, and other areas. However, there are now separate WikiProjects in many of these areas, and so the focus of WikiProject Mathematics has shifted towards articles which are primarily mathematical (although it still includes many aspects of theoretical physics, for example).

Much progress has been made. The overall organisation of the project is now pretty much in place, and a "house style" for mathematical articles is reasonably well established. The list of mathematics articles now has more than 15000 entries, and this list is automatically updated by a bot using the list of mathematics categories to identify relevant articles. There are also lists of articles by topic which organize articles by subdiscipline and other criteria.

When contributing new articles which are (even only remotely) related to mathematics (including biographies of mathematicians, and so on), please add at least an approximate mathematical category. This enables us to identify, and hence review and add to (or mercilessly savage!) each other's contributions.

The main issues for the project are now probably the following ones.

  • Bringing stubs up to a reasonable standard. There are always plenty of pages that are definition-only. We need to add motivation and examples.
  • Developing important articles into good expositions. As anyone who teaches the subject knows, the gap between stating some true facts, and really putting over a topic, is quite large. Here we can consider also the need to add history and proper attributions.
  • Expanding coverage to bring the subject up-to-date. This is a huge task, so the main requirements are patience and determination. In particular a lot of work is still needed to bring the more advanced material up-to-date, so expert contributions are to be encouraged.
  • Keeping track of all relevant articles, by listing, categorising and assessing them. As mentioned above, it is important to add even an approximate category to each mathematical article. There is also an subproject whose aim is to assess the broad field, importance and quality of our articles. Anyone can contribute to this task by adding or updating {{maths rating}} templates on article talk pages.
  • Identifying pseudo-mathematics, hoaxing and other unattributable material. Most Wikipedians, naturally enough, don't feel qualified to pronounce on articles purporting to be mathematical, so it is up to us to identify crankery, hoaxes, and material with dubious or unverifiable sources. Anything suspect should be reported on the talk page of this page.

Things to do

Looking for something to do? The following table lists some of the places on Wikipedia where mathematics related requests, suggestions and tasks have been collected together.

What Where Suggest or edit a mathematics article needing attention Pages needing attention: MathematicsRequest or write a mathematics article Requested articles: MathematicsRequest or provide an image Requested images: MathematicsExpand a mathematics "stub" Mathematics stubsSuggest or edit a redirect which could have its own article Redirects with possibilities: MathematicsHelp move PlanetMath content onto Wikipedia PlanetMath ExchangeAdd or find a "missing" mathematics article Missing: MathematicsImprove an article that has been tagged as needing attention Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Mathematics/ListsTurn a "red link" blue Mathematical redlinksMaintain the mathematics portal Portal:MathematicsReview or contribute to current mathematics activity Current activityHelp to resolve a dispute Requests for comment: MathematicsAsk or answer a question about mathematics Reference desk: MathematicsNominate an article for collaborative improvement Mathematics Collaboration of the MonthAssess an article's importance and quality WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0Nominate an article for the A-class quality ratingWikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating

Some issues to think about

Probably the hardest part of writing a mathematical article (actually, any article) is the difficulty of addressing the level of mathematical knowledge on the part of the reader. For example, when writing about a field, do we assume that the reader already knows group theory? A general approach is to start simple, then move toward more abstract and general statements as the article proceeds. The suggestions below are intended to help us achieve this.

When describing a concept in terms of some other concept (for example, explaining rational numbers in terms of integers), be sure to:

  • add a (prominent) link to the relevant article (in this case, integer) — as with other wikipedia articles, avoid duplicate links;
  • if it makes sense, add a very quick (and naive) explanation/description (in this case, "positive or negative whole numbers" might work).

If the relevant article has not been written yet, then create a good stub, and add a mathematical category. This will list the article in several places (for instance on the list of mathematics articles and there is a reasonable chance that someone will expand on it.

Some terminology varies from author to author in the literature. It is therefore a good idea to check any pre-existing articles related to a topic to see if there is already an established usage. Proposals for changes in usage are always welcome: the talk page of this page is one forum where issues such as this can be raised.

New contributors may find it helpful to spend a bit of time perusing some of the existing content; this should provide some idea of what type of information is already available, and how much detail is appropriate in a wikipedia mathematics article.

The project Wikipedia:WikiProject General Audience, whose goal is to help make articles more accessible, is also worth consulting.

Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines provides guidance for writing readable and well referenced scientific and mathematical articles.

Conventions

The following pages attempt to describe certain conventions for articles with mathematical content. Please read, comment on, improve, criticize, and if appropriate, follow these standards.

Classification

There is no one single, prescribed method for classifying mathematics articles. Both the lists and the categories have grown organically, rather than being imported. See also areas of mathematics.

List of publications in mathematics

There is an effort to organize a list of important publications in many areas of science. Such a list captures the major achievements in each field and might be a valuable asset for one trying to learn a new field.The List of publications in computer science is the oldest and most mature list and might show the goal of the lists. The rest of the list needs many more contributions. Please help improve the mathematics related lists:

Assessment of mathematics articles

Mathematics article ratings Priority Quality FAAGAA-BB+BStartStubUATotal Top7910311075730224 High32528184281670570 Mid5291628871831421354 Low411310460387411591 UA0000010910 Total 19 14 25 78 683 1660 1258 12 3749
Last updated: Tue Jun 10 01:10:02 UTC 2008 Math articles by field and quality Field Quality FAAGAA-BB+BStartStubUATotal Algebra0 1 2 7 76 260 272 0 618 Analysis3 0 2 12 86 205 119 0 427 Applied mathematics1 0 0 4 39 63 32 3 142 Basics1 1 4 5 40 78 18 0 147 Discrete mathematics0 0 1 6 28 87 66 1 189 Foundations, logic, and set theory0 1 1 14 86 182 141 0 425 Frequently viewed13 10 15 41 226 176 17 1 499 General0 1 3 4 24 50 39 0 121 Geometry0 3 1 7 114 231 221 1 578 History1 1 1 5 18 23 5 0 54 Mathematical physics2 1 3 3 24 30 13 0 76 Mathematicians9 2 5 7 41 162 134 0 360 Number theory0 1 2 2 31 104 83 0 223 Probability and statistics3 0 0 7 68 130 61 0 269 Theorems and conjectures1 4 0 6 42 95 74 1 223 Topology0 3 1 1 28 74 57 0 164 Vital articles3 0 2 9 28 20 0 0 62
Last updated: Tue Jun 10 01:10:02 UTC 2008

The subproject Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0 provides a system to assess mathematics articles for their quality and importance, and to classify them broadly by field. This system was originally developed as part of Wikipedia 1.0, and these assessments will be used to help us to determine which articles will appear in the Wikipedia 1.0 CD.

However, article assessments are useful more generally to track the project's progress, identify weak spots in its coverage, and highlight articles which could become Good Articles or Featured Articles. Articles are assessed by placing (or updating) a {{maths rating}} template on the talk page of the article. Furthermore, the template provides an opportunity to add a brief comment on the article suggesting improvements that could be made.

The table on the right summarizes the current state-of-play. The links in this table point to assessment pages on which articles are listed by field and quality, complete with any comments that editors have made.

Any article can be assessed for its mathematical content, and anyone can rate an article. The only exceptions are the Good Article and Featured Article quality grades. These should only be added to articles which have been through the standard Wikipedia Good Article Nomination and Featured Article Candidacy procedures. Editors are also encouraged to use the A-class assessment process to assign A-class quality to an article.

Good articles

As of November 26, 2007, the mathematics Good Articles are

Mathematicians:

Ramanujan, Srinivasa — Turing, Alan

Mathematics:

Commutativity — Derivative — E (mathematical constant) — Exponentiation — Hilbert space — Homotopy groups of spheres — Mathematics — Order theory — Ordinal number — Pi — Pseudoforest — Pythagorean theorem — Sylvester's sequence — Znám's problem

Mathematical Physics:

Entropy — Schrödinger equation — Special relativity — String theory

Puzzles: Rubik's Cube

A-class articles

The A-class assessment process is used to select A-class articles. So far the following have been promoted by this process:

The following 12 articles have also been identified as A-class:

Albert Einstein — Algorithm — Charles Peirce — Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace — Four color theorem — General relativity — Golden ratio — Manifold — Mathematics — Number — Pythagorean theorem — Riemann hypothesis.

Featured articles

As of April 24, 2008, there are 16 mathematics articles which are featured articles:

Featured articles Article Featured1Trigonometric functions20 December2003Infinite monkey theorem29 September2004Monty Hall problem23 July2005Blaise Pascal19 August2005Isaac Newton19 October2005Marian RejewskiDiscussion19 January2006CryptographyDiscussion2 July2006Leonhard EulerDiscussion8 October20060.999...Discussion10 October2006Polar coordinate systemDiscussion31 January20071 − 2 + 3 − 4 + · · ·Discussion17 March2007Johannes KeplerDiscussion20 March2007Introduction to general relativityDiscussion24 July2007Georg CantorDiscussion31 July2007ArchimedesDiscussion23 October2007Emery MolyneuxDiscussion18 April2008

There are also 5 featured mathematical images: Image:Buddhabrot-deep.jpg, Image:Lorenz attractor yb.svg, Image:Pi-unrolled-720.gif, Image:Pi-unrolled.gif, and Image:Tetrahedral group 2.svg; and one featured list: List of International Mathematical Olympiads.

Former featured articles

As of April 24, 2008, there are at least 17 mathematics articles which are former featured articles:

Former featured articles Article Featured1De-featured1Ordinal4 April200219 January2004Statistics4 April200219 January2004Pythagorean theorem4 April2002Discussion21 March2004Illegal prime28 August2003Discussion13 July2004Computational complexity theory4 April2002Discussion23 August2004Vacuous truthDiscussion6 January2004Discussion20 September2004TriangleDiscussionMay 10, 2004Discussion3 March2005Fractal   Discussion12 July2004Discussion15 September2005Algorithm24 July2002Discussion28 May2006Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace16 October2005Discussion19 September2006Ackermann function18 December2003Discussion21 October2006Regular polytope18 November2004Discussion23 January2007Margin of error12 October2004Discussion3 March2007Galileo Galilei4 November2003Discussion12 September2007Lists of mathematics topicsDiscussion27 October2005Discussion31 December2007Carl Friedrich GaussDiscussion10 July2005Discussion4 January2008Game theoryDiscussion4 December2005Discussion18 March2008Prisoner's dilemma19 January2004Discussion16 April2008
1The discussion links (where they exist) point to the featured article candidate discussion or the featured article removal candidate discussion — prior to June, 2003, there was no formal FA nomination process, and there was no formal FA removal process, prior to March, 2004.
Emboldened article titles indicate articles that have been featured on the main page. The symbol: , indicates an article that has an audio recording of the article text (see the article for a link to its recording).

Featured Article candidates

Emmy Noether is currently a mathematics Featured article candidate.

Categories: WikiProject Mathematics | WikiProjects participating in Wikipedia 1.0 assessments

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