User talk:Prime.mover

sin(x)/x
Thanks a lot! I'm only a college student but I know some proofs, I'll see what I feel like contributing :) --GFauxPas 14:47, 23 September 2011 (CDT)

Using an external editor
Hey, I just found out and tested that you can use an external editor to edit pages. It works great. I tried so far using GVim using the "It's All Text" plug-in for Firefox. All you have to do is install the plug-in and then tell it where your editor is. Here are the two sites I used to help me set it up. I did this in Linux but I'm sure it'll work fine in Windows! Hope this helps --Joe


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:External_editors
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Syntax_highlighting#External_editor_feature

Thanx dude - I'll check this out ... --prime.mover 06:20, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Edit bar buttons
Hey, I'm not sure if you noticed the new post, but I added some new buttons to the edit bar (So far just ref tags and the one for the equation template). Any others that are used a lot that might be good to put there? --Joe 20:40, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

plenty! - too many, in fact, to be sensible. As I happen to be on any particular subject I tend to just add them to my user page, which is growing by the day.

Can't think of anything universal, unless you want to put up a Theorem - Proof template:

Proof
[[Category:]] ... or something. The main advantage to such things is the tendency towards uniformity of style, I suppose ...

I did notice the equation button, haven't used it yet, haven't been doing anything equation-based since I noticed it. But I will ... sooner or later. --prime.mover 20:53, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Group Examples and such
I've combined the page on Definition:Dicyclic Group with all of the material from the Quaternion Group page, since the quaternion group is a special case of a dicyclic group. Let me know what you think of it!

For the dicyclic group page, as well pages like Alternating Group, Symmetric Group, what I'd like to do, what I personally think is ideal, is having these pages remain as repositories for all proofs about these objects, such as demonstrating that they are groups, that they are non-abelian, and any other common properties about them. A separate definition page should exist explaining what these objects are, so that we have something to link to from proofs that doesn't send the end user through a long explanation of why a group is a group.

Your thoughts? Zelmerszoetrop 22:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Logic question
Hi, I want to start adding complete proofs for all of the basic metatheorems of first-order logic, but I don't think this wiki has an official deductive system for FOL. How should we pick one? Whoops, sorry about that. I was being lazy and didn't bother to check. Mag487 06:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi, another very general logic query. We presently have formal logic divided into a bunch of categories (some of whose borders are blurry), like predicate logic, propositional logic, mathematical logic and so on. I would propose we either subsume the categories into a mathematical logic supercategory, or eliminate them altogether in favor of a mathematical logic category alone. I'm not sure, e.g., mathematicians really refer to predicate logic as such, but rather to "first-order logic without equality," which is on a continuum with a bunch of other logics (like first-order logic with equality, or second-order logic). My intention is to tackle the important basic results of first-order logic with equality (the logic that set theory takes place in) and then branch out a bit to other areas of mathematical logic like proofs of the incompleteness theorems. Mag487 07:25, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

commutative diagrams
Do you know how to do them on-wiki? J D Bowen 21:11, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Nope. I created the ones in here using GeoGebra. It was fiddly. --prime mover 21:23, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Since you can create them in LaTeX I suspect it would just be a matter of importing the relevant packages into the wiki's LaTeX distribution, but I have no idea if that's doable. --Alec (talk) 18:07, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

This doesn't work:

 $\xymatrix{ \bullet \ar[r] \ar@{.>}[r] & \bullet }$ 

Hi
I'm not familiar with Hartley and Hawkes, I'm using Grillet - Abstract algebra as a guide. Everything that's down already looks pretty good! I'm quite busy at the moment but I'll think about how to treat polynomials in the near future, I think the work is in keeping in mind a global picture, the results themselves aren't much trouble.

Yeah it's a nice little project - makes a pleasant distraction from all the work I'm supposed to be doing. I've changed a few \and's etc. as I've seen them; I'm new to the wiki-style editing so just shout if I'm doing something out-of-style. --linus44 00:22, 9 February 2011 (CST)

Pointwise operations
So there is, that's great, it wasn't going to be thrilling to write, thanks! "Induced structure" is a better term anyway. I'll mark the pages not needed for deletion. Also, this site needs a `like' button for what you wrote about "Q.E.D." for ending proofs on the help page. I die a little inside every time I see it. -- Linus44 06:46, 13 February 2011 (CST)

In fact, the definition of induced structure is quite robust so it covers addition (although interestingly not [I think] multiplication) of polynomial forms as well. This should shrink the unwieldy collection of pages I had used to prove that they are a ring. -- Linus44 07:54, 13 February 2011 (CST)

Math Fixing Macro?
Hi! I've been playing around with emacs macros to make changing pages with \ etc. quicker when I come across them. As far as I can tell, it's not possible to write one that sort's out the aligned material, i.e. that changes | $\mapsto$ \vert, removes the \ \ tags and spaces the }}'s inside an aligned equation without learning some lisp. Just wondered if you had written something along those lines? If not I might have a go, shouldn't be too hard unless lisp is unexpectedly confusing. Linus44 14:27, 20 February 2011 (CST)
 * Cor blimey, lisp! That takes me back. Never used the language, which is unusual for me and my life journey, but once you get your head round the paradigm it seems straightforward.


 * Sounds like a brilliant idea, but I'm wary about using a macro that does things blindly.


 * What would be useful would be for a bot to go through all the pages which have a) deprecated commands: \and, \or, \reals etc. and flag them up by adding them to a category, b) identify those with the old math tags on them, and do likewise, and b) identify those with other breakages on them, whatever they be. Then we'll have a great big category with all the pages that need fixing on them, and we can address them all. Perhaps we can "press the button" on any particular page we come to, and then check the page for consistency before releasing. --prime mover 15:06, 20 February 2011 (CST)


 * Well Lisp ain't too bad, although the author seems confused about the conventions regarding where to put plus signs. Something like this:

(defun cmath (start end) "Replace “<” to “&lt;” and other chars in HTML. This works on the current region."  (interactive "r")  (save-restriction (narrow-to-region start end) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "$$" nil t) (replace-match "$" nil t)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "$$" nil t) (replace-match "$" nil t)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "" nil t) (replace-match " " nil t)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "" nil t) (replace-match "" nil t)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "{{equation" nil t) (replace-match "{{eqn" nil t)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "\\and" nil t) (replace-match "\\land" nil t)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "\\or" nil t) (replace-match "\\lor" nil t)) ;; (goto-char (point-min)) ;; (while (re-search-forward "\\$\\(.+?\\)\\$" nil t)        ;; (replace-match ;; (concat "$" (replace-regexp-in-string "|" "\\vert" (buffer-substring (match-beginning 1) (match-end 1))) "$" ) ;regexp-in ;; ;;(concat "$" (replace-string "|" "\vert" (buffer-substring (match-beginning 1) (match-end 1))) "$" ) ;;        	  nil t    ;; )            ;; ) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (re-search-forward "\\([^~]+?\\$[^~]+?\\)" nil t)    (replace-match (concat "{{begin-eqn}}" (replace-regexp-in-string "\\$" "" (buffer-substring (match-beginning 1) (match-end 1))) "{{end-eqn}}") nil t   )       ) )   )

(fset 'mfix [?\C-x ?h ?\M-x ?c ?m ?a ?t ?h return])


 * in .emacs does the job except 2 problems:
 * for some reason I can't get it to substitute \vert for | (the commented bit), it won't escape the backslash
 * it deletes the dollar signs in the |c= part of equations as well]


 * Since it makes sense to preview the changes first I'm pretty much ok with this, the remaining changes aren't frequent enough to be tedious (which is another way of saying I'm tired of looking at regular expressions). But maybe I'll find the time and interest to neaten it up.


 * As for a bot, I'm more of an incidental programmer so I wouldn't know where to start, although it does sound cool. Linus44 14:22, 21 February 2011 (CST)


 * Perhaps we don't want to do the "equation" bits. No, no "perhaps" about it, I'd rather I (or whoever) did these by hand. The task's not intractable now, we have less than 600 of them, and it's therapeutic. I've done all the long pages (i.e. greater than 6000 characters) so most of the hard work's done.


 * But replacing delimiters directly by $ \$ $ is a good idea.


 * As for a bot, I glanced at the material on the mediawiki site (or wherever it was) and it talks about python, which I'm not prepared to get into at this stage (sheer intellectual idleness) ... had a recent change of career direction and there are less brain cells available for that sort of thing now, at least till I get my metaphorical feet under the equally metaphorical table. --prime mover 15:33, 21 February 2011 (CST)


 * I think I agree, especially when playing with |'s and double braces it's easy to come out with unwanted side effects since they form the "framework" of the template as well. The reason I stopped where I did was that to only pick out the correct sets of characters involved "nested" regular expressions, which I can testify are not theraputic. Although I am impressed with what can be done with emacs, I might learn lisp proper some time.


 * My knowledge of python is based on a couple of xkcd comics; have you tried  ? Linus44 16:57, 21 February 2011 (CST)


 * Nope, not yet, and not tonight, I'm up at 6 in the morning, my wife returns to work and needs transport. Another day. Sleep well. --prime mover 17:02, 21 February 2011 (CST)

Re: Links and Categories
I know, and I'll make more of an effort to do it, and will go back and cross-reference stuff I already added over time. For a lame single example, I did add the definition Definition:Ultraproduct a while after having referenced and used it in Compactness Theorem. Although as a side note, I also later noticed that there's a few compactness theorem proofs;

http://www.proofwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=compactness

I hadn't searched it when I first put it up (I'm learning to do this as well). So at some point I'll probably try to sort out how those should be merged together.

It just already takes a long time to add something and doing all the linking makes it take even longer and makes it less fun/interesting to do. As I get more familiar with the site and more used to the wiki stuff, I'll approach behavior you like more, but I'm probably going to end up striking a balance because I'd rather be doing something that seems like it's adding content rather than connecting it (I understand that poorly connected content is arguably not very good content). A significant part of my motivation here is review and self-education. I recognize the importance of the things you mention for the usefulness of the site, but increasing that isn't necessarily the sole or primary reason for my participation here.

Qedetc 16:04, 2 June 2011 (CDT)

Also! If it's any consolation, I have been watching the edits people do after me and am trying to be more preemptive to save them some of the trouble (mostly so far that's been you and Alecscooper).

Qedetc 16:08, 2 June 2011 (CDT)

Whoops, I had asked about a page name that was weaker than the theorem it pointed to, but realized you were redirecting it to a stronger theorem anyway and had changed the name of that page as well. I guess my remaining question at the moment is whether changing $\kappa$ to $K$ increases the searchability, or should I try to avoid variable names in titles all together, (or at least make sure their role is clear in the title). Also, are really long titles looked down on? Qedetc 11:37, 3 June 2011 (CDT)

Somehow I had missed a message you left. In response to "I notice that there is significant crossover of terminology between this area of formal language theory / model theory which you're in the process of working on, and the point-set topology that I'm also working on." I'm curious; do you have a few examples of particular shared terms or concepts that made you notice some connection (however slight that connection might be)? Qedetc 16:55, 4 June 2011 (CDT)

You don't need to apologize. I was mostly worried that somehow something I said came off offensively. (Which, if it did in any way, feel free to let me know, even if it was because of just what you happened to be thinking about at the time or some weird particularity of how I phrased things. It's not really in my interest to offend people.)

Re: other stuff. It's probably good if someone yells at me occasionally, otherwise I'd probably get lazy and not do things very thoroughly here as far as the site is concerned. I'm secretly lazy.

Qedetc 11:30, 9 June 2011 (CDT)

Thank you for welcome: 日本への栄光
日本への栄光!! Prime.mover,Thank you for welcome May I ask you 3 questions: Again,Thank you for welcome --Yohji kinomoto 16:20, 8 June 2011 (CDT)
 * How old is this nice Project?
 * Is there any Japanese version ?
 * I have some proofs, correction and enhancement, should I do it directly or after permission?

Thank you for the message
Thank you for the note Sir.

It is a little fuzzy for me, but it seem to be simple for you; may you or any of your behalf do this (dividing or cutting or so?)

thank you in advance. --Yohji kinomoto 10:13, 10 June 2011 (CDT)

Correction
I think there is one missing i in the word Polynomials (written Polynomals) in some recent edits. As it was in title, it was difficult to correct.
 * Regards and congratulations for the great job!--Integer 17:18, 10 June 2011 (CDT)

Tidy up
My talk page was getting a bit long so I've purged it back - removed a lot of old stuff which is no longer relevant, and some phatic talk. Don't be offended if I've deleted your comments. --prime mover 00:26, 13 June 2011 (CDT)

Thanks for help "Prime.mover" yesterday I was wondering about the signature and how to put it at the end of my talk but really I dont know how !! I try to search but I dont know how ! thanks for helping me and for this information.--Noor 17:03, 13 June 2011 (CDT)

Notation
I understand the desire to promote unconventional notation--I would love to replace every $2\pi$ with $\tau$--however, conventional mathematical notation is very important to the culture of mathematics. Long standing traditions, like $\pi$, give insight to the often overlooked human history of the subject.

Contributing to any wiki project naturally implies a collaborative effort, as you state in the caveat. However, I do not believe that this ought to be interpreted as a license to use other people's contributions to promote one persons campaign for a revision of the mathematical language. Conventional mathematical notation emerges through a natural selection process--not by force. With all due respect, I believe it is in the spirit of such a project for everything (including house style) to be open to debate.

When it comes to the different symbols for divides, the conventional notation deserves a chance. Surely I am not the first person to post work containing the $\mid$ symbol for divides. I propose allowing both notations to appear, perhaps with a link to a page for public debate.

--TruXus 21:45, 23 August 2011 (CDT)

Yes, indeed this is one of those things I consider important--my inner math nerd can be quite passionate. Thanks for being flexible, I'll try to not be much more of a nuisance.

Btw, I should say that I really love this project and am very happy I came across it. I've been telling all my friends about it. --TruXus 00:48, 24 August 2011 (CDT)

Milestone
I should be able to keep an eye on it. I'm traveling tomorrow night, but worst case scenario I can count backwards and figure out which was number 4000. --Alec (talk) 17:45, 24 August 2011 (CDT)


 * I'm out of Internet range for the next three days, so I can't watch the proof count. All yours til I get back. --Alec

Set Theory - "Long-term" Goal
You may have noticed that I've been writing up a lot of proofs from the book "Set Theory and Its Logic" My semi-short term goal with this is to create a formalization of natural numbers and natural number arithmetic using a single definition (not these joint recursive definitions involving the successor function). However, before I do this, I need add a few theorems on some set theory, then construct a recursive template (which could be useful in other ways, too) from which I will define addition, multiplication, and exponentiation in natural numbers. This fills the gap between set theory and arithmetic, and it's very useful. It's an alternate formalization of natural numbers (the formalization itself is not quite as useful as that of natural numbers off of ordinals, because it doesn't come in with a built-in ordering relation that remains true for higher cardinals, but it's significantly easier because it's not necessary to deal with Limit Ordinals. Plus, it's something I've never tried before, so I'm hoping to learn something along the way). -Andrew Salmon 02:01, 13 September 2011 (CDT)


 * It's actually possible (as is done in Set Theory and Its Logic) to define natural numbers and addition, multiplication, and exponentiation by a direct definition instead of a self-referencing recursive one. This is what I plan to do - but there is a specific term Quine uses as a recursive set generator and and a definition for iteration of a function a certain number of times.  What should I call these definitions, which are used mostly for construction of natural numbers and definition of addition, but it's used just enough to be essential. -Andrew Salmon 18:57, 13 September 2011 (CDT)


 * Use the specific term that Quine uses. Can always be changed if there's a better one. --prime mover 00:16, 14 September 2011 (CDT)

Changing name of proof
Could you tell me how to change the name of a proof page once you have created it.Cause you asked me to change the name of

my proof Fifth Postulate but since I'm a newbie to the site, I don't know how. Could you help me?

P.S. I am from Kerala,My mistake earlier. - Sreeteen

Axiom schemes for predicate calculus
Hi, do we already have axiom schemes for predicate calculus? If not, I can add them and develop some basic theorems. -Andrew Salmon 17:39, 14 September 2011 (CDT)


 * Look at Category:Predicate Calculus and see that page, that's where it starts from. --prime mover 00:15, 15 September 2011 (CDT)

EDIT - Also, I'm not completely comfortable with the fact that we only have natural deduction axioms so far (I'm used to Hilbert-style axioms). Could I add Hilbert-style axioms for propositional and predicate calculus (then that's all the axioms we need). -Andrew Salmon 23:30, 14 September 2011 (CDT)


 * Certainly. If there turns out to be a lot of duplication, then, shrug, there will end up being a lot of merging. --prime mover 00:15, 15 September 2011 (CDT)

Greetings
Hi. Just found the site from google, seems really interesting. Was just wondering if it's allowed to add proofs that aren't necessarily theorems like homework proofs? e.g gcd ((a^m)-1 / a-1, a-1 )= gcd (a-1,m) Ddanndt 15:34, 26 September 2011 (CDT)


 * If it's a mathematical truth, then there's no reason not to include it. Let's stick it between $\LaTeX$ delimiters and muck about with it:


 * $\gcd \left({\dfrac {(a^m)-1} {a-1}, a-1}\right) = \gcd (a-1,m)$
 * ... that's one I don't think we've got. Feel free to put it in (but I reserve the right to change its name and tidy it up). --prime mover 16:08, 26 September 2011 (CDT)

Collapsible section
Unexpectedly, I have a rudimentary working version already. It can be found on User:Lord_Farin/SandboxTemplate, and examples of the use can be found at User:Lord_Farin/Sandbox. I plan on making the functionality much like that of the eqn template. Please tell me what you think. --Lord_Farin 15:52, 15 October 2011 (CDT)
 * Addendum : For it to work, you need to copy the contents of User:Lord_Farin/common.js to your own User:prime.mover/common.js. --Lord_Farin
 * Awesome! I like it, though I would put "(show)" on the RHS is smaller font and as "[show]', similar how how it has "[edit]" (if you have it enabled in your settings). --Joe (talk) 16:28, 15 October 2011 (CDT)
 * As well, I think this would be good for all sections in all pages. --Joe (talk) 16:29, 15 October 2011 (CDT)
 * Hmm ... maybe. I'll get back to you in a day or two - I've been waylaid by the latest Terry Pratchett novel and am unable to do any work here till it's finished. --prime mover 18:09, 15 October 2011 (CDT)
 * It might be feasible to do something like this (a bit simpler is enough for me, but for a simple idea): |ref. The question is if we want to pay the 17kB load (Yahoo User Interface is used) it brings with every page. --Lord_Farin 18:13, 15 October 2011 (CDT)
 * Yeeeek! I've had my face shoved far closer to YUI than I ever wanted it in my professional capacity, and my view is that we ought not to if we can do stuff without it.
 * I also don't like the idea of making all sections foldable. Small pages you just want to be able to see without clicking pesky "show" links, particularly the link at the top. Can we just keep "show" links to pages that need it? Particularly for lemmata, maybe, and only for pages which are currently unwieldy. Pages which already look good I'd rather we left as they are. --prime mover 05:10, 16 October 2011 (CDT)
 * ... sorry - forgot to mention: brilliant job. --prime mover 05:54, 16 October 2011 (CDT)
 * I'm also not so much a fan of YUI. That said, I like the idea of making sections foldable, not by default folded though. --Joe (talk) 09:01, 16 October 2011 (CDT)
 * Thanks for the heads up. I agree with prime.mover; this should not be over-used. Furthermore, I dislike the WikiPedia style, which puts the [show] link on the right side of the page, as it is contrary to our short sentence house style.
 * I propagate the default folding, as otherwise the effect will most likely be lost... Also, please note that disabling JavaScript in your browser will not make items inaccessible; they will never even gain the show/hide link, and visually I think nothing will change. I will try to adapt the template to facilitate larger sections of text to be inserted. --Lord_Farin 02:03, 17 October 2011 (CDT)


 * That is done. However, it does not yet work with the [edit] buttons on the right. Is there any way I can control which edit page they refer to?
 * The font of the link can be adapted by using some CSS. I haven't looked into it, but there is a span tag surrounding it, which always has the same class; it shouldn't be too hard. --Lord_Farin 02:28, 17 October 2011 (CDT)
 * It allows nesting of foldable sections, which is good.
 * What is less good is that you appear have no control over the level of heading (it appears always to be level 3). I would't know how to fix that, but suggestions:
 * a) Add a parameter for the level of heading: 2, 3, etc.
 * b) Default to 2 (as that's the usual default level of "Proof".
 * c) If the sections are nested, default to one plus the level of the one you're nesting in.
 * Just suggestions - which may or may not be feasible. --prime mover 06:56, 17 October 2011 (CDT)
 * I have implemented a) and b). Although I have taken the liberty to default to 3 as this will most likely not be for hiding entire proofs of theorems, but for lemmata. c) is technically hard, if not impossible. The implementation of this appears to have broken the [edit] links for separate paragraphs. That's not bad, as it didn't function properly anyway. --Lord_Farin 07:41, 17 October 2011 (CDT)
 * I've never been a fan of the mid-page "edit" links anyway, as they cause xtra linebreaks between sections to be lost, resulting in muggins having to get in there to make an edit specially to add the extra linebreak in, so as to space it aesthetically again. --prime mover 10:25, 17 October 2011 (CDT)

If one would allow me access to the MediaWiki:common.js and MediaWiki:common.css files, this template could be up and working by tomorrow. It might want to be positioned in the proofwiki specific editing shortcuts. If this is too early in your opinion, I might develop some appropriate CSS to style the [hide/show] part. --Lord_Farin 16:37, 17 October 2011 (CDT)
 * Joe is the one who holds the metaphorical purse-strings in this matter ... he's the one who has done most of the work (in fact, all of the work) on the javascript and CSS on this site so far (I lack the patience nowadays, unfortunately). Suggest you get together with him and take it from there. --prime mover 16:50, 17 October 2011 (CDT)

The functionality has been implemented. The templates are Template:begin-foldable and Template:end-foldable. --Lord_Farin 12:49, 18 October 2011 (CDT)
 * Nice one - I'll come out to play later, once I've sorted out a tottering tower of tomes ... --prime mover 12:55, 18 October 2011 (CDT)

Block determinant
I would say that the result mentioned in Dererminant for block would be a valuable addition to PW. That being said, I agree with your point that I probably had better not given the solution straight away. My enthusiasm sometimes just takes over ;). Thanks for the pull towards reality and purpose. Any chance you can respond to the various talk pages I opened yesterday? I'm still quite reluctant to delete approaches, as I just might be not familiar with them. --Lord_Farin 11:50, 24 October 2011 (CDT)
 * Yeah I'll get to it, no worries, Mondays are busy.
 * I agree that Dererminant for block is a good result - but this is the first time an anonymous luser has actually posted up a demand for a result - it's not something I ever envisaged. (It's the wording: "Can you give me ..." not even a bloody "please"!) The page, as I say, can be deleted, and a new page started with the result on it.
 * Apologies but I just don't like anonymous contributors! --prime mover 12:43, 24 October 2011 (CDT)

PW Style
Is the style as used on Exponential on Real Numbers is Group Isomorphism for multiple proofs the new standard? Before, there used to be a separate section for each different proof. I would recommend the latter as to facilitate a clear distinction with the even smaller subsection headings for eg. lemmata and induction steps (which now, hypothetically, would yield an induction argument for a proof of a lemma, used in one of multiple proofs, to have the unavailable heading 5). --Lord_Farin 14:42, 26 October 2011 (CDT)
 * If there are multiple proofs, and a proof is complicated and needs several sections, then I would recommend that the proofs go in their own separately-transcluded pages. In that case, the formatting of the headings can be more flexible as you can use onlyinclude to ensure that the headings of the appropriate levels go on whichever pages they are meant to.
 * With these little theorems and little proofs, I find it makes it look neater to bag all the little proofs into one larger blanket section. It's by means of a sort-of experiment, to make it look sweeter. (Ultimately. every proof would have its own separately transcluded page, but I'm not up for that type of work tonight. My boss asked me to research SharePoint today, and I've come home from work tonight positively brain-damaged.) --prime mover 14:48, 26 October 2011 (CDT)