User talk:Prime.mover

Future Proofs Guidance
I am just about ready to tackle the theorem of Transfinite Induction and, a little later, the slightly more difficult proof of Transfinite Recursion. Neither should be tough, because the proof has already been worked out in Takeuti/Zaring. Simultaneously, I will be proving the Peano Axioms for a subset of the ordinals. Notice that three of these are theorems which have multiple ways of stating them. For example, transfinite induction could be stated as $\forall y \in \operatorname{On}: ( \forall x \in y \phi ( x ) \implies \phi ( y ) ) \implies \forall y \in \operatorname{On}: \phi ( y )$ or by giving a specific set of conditions for a base case, successor case, and limit case. How should I go about this theorem -- I am assuming I should create just one page and stuff all the theorems on there. It would be nice if I could have some guidance, considering that I am still not too familiar with all the details of proofwiki... Andrew Salmon 00:42, 29 November 2011 (CST)


 * I apologise, but I have been told I do not have the authority to make decisions about the direction of ProofWiki. I have been reminded that ProofWiki is a wiki, and not "just prime.mover's personal blog". I am no longer allowed to answer questions as to what should or should not be in ProofWiki. This is completely up to the individual contributors, and editing pages of others and telling others what pages to put up should not be done by me. --prime mover 00:47, 29 November 2011 (CST)


 * To respond on-topic: I think you'd best put it up there with a Template:Tidy tag so that we can adapt it and guide you from there. As to the direction of the site, I think coherence and uniformity are very important for a pleasant reading experience. This is what the house style was developed for, and anything that does not conform to it should be put in appropriate form. At all times, when editing work of non-experienced authors, it is probably a good habit to drop a note on their talk page explaining where they violated the house style and how this can be prevented in the future. And I think you, prime.mover, are perfectly entitled to perform such corrections, despite what reactions have come on that part in the past. --Lord_Farin 11:55, 29 November 2011 (CST)


 * What he said. --Joe (talk) 12:14, 29 November 2011 (CST)


 * Ultimately comes down to, if we advertise this as a wiki, the rules of it being a wiki ought to be adhered to. And I'm not sure I'm contributing positively. Best if I stand down and let those who are actually legally qualified to take over. --prime mover 14:33, 29 November 2011 (CST)
 * Well, the rules of this wiki are whatever we make them to be. Saying that I believe that any rule can be changed, so long as a majority of active users think it's best. As our body of content grows, I think that a consistant (as possible) style of presenting said body will be essential. Right now I think that Prime.mover has the best idea of what the general style should be. If anyone has a problem with a particular part of the style, then that should be addressed by a vote (or something) from the current active users. People who want to post shouldn't be deterred by the house style and should post whatever they can, however they can. I for one dont' know that current style, so others shouldn't feel discouraged to  post. Leave it some one else to fix up later. Right now we are still in a growing stage and need as much content as possible. Most importantly, this is a wiki that allows anyone to edit and so to quote this statement again:  If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here. Just so long as you are making changes to improve the content, not edit the style to fit your own personal preferences. I hope this made sense, was on topic and didn't have too many gramatical errors. --Joe (talk) 15:25, 29 November 2011 (CST)
 * It wasn't so much that contributions are discouraged (i dont tink ive discouraged much) so much as objection is made to tinkering. If a user comes in with a completely different general style of presentation (possbly becase of differnt cultures proidicung books with different language) then do we amend it (e.g. change $\mathcal T$ to $\tau$ to denote a topology)? Quetionable, but tempting as lots of oher topology pages have $\tau$. Otoh if a different symbol is used (unexplained) on the grounds that "everyone knows what that symbol means" (except they dont' always, specally if its me) you either say "where :**--! means the boggityboo of humdingersland" or you convert it. Then you got where a mathematical truth itself is challenged (e.g. the symbol $\infty$ is at best a fiction whose meaning is interpreted by limits, but someone insists that it is not necessary to point this out because "all modern mathematicians accept this") and that's where I got to stand down because I don't know what I'm talking about, all I know is what i read. --prime mover 15:48, 29 November 2011 (CST)

Under the assumption of valid references (that is, books and the like) I think it would be most consistent to amend indeed with the 'where' clause, and also make sure the definition pages cover possible differences in notation. In case of very obscure notation or possible confusion, retracting notation is justified, but again I stipulate all occurring notation for a concept that is encountered so far should be mentioned on the definition page. In general, it might help if we expanded on the Help namespace; it seems somewhat... insufficient. --Lord_Farin 15:56, 29 November 2011 (CST)
 * I was actually going to ask for a ruling on $\infty$ on PW because it's used haphazardly in many books. I don't really care what all modern mathematicians know or don't know, isn't PW a way for people who don't know something yet to learn it? --GFauxPas 16:02, 29 November 2011 (CST)
 * In my opinion, the lemniscate $\infty$ is a symbol which needs strict definition in every context. Otherwise its use is just too ambiguous. --Lord_Farin 16:08, 29 November 2011 (CST)
 * LF: I know, i got to do that thing but I get tired. I have a plan to put a section in (but I need to guess up a title) for concepts which have more than one notation but this site favours one over the others. I do what you say, if there's more than one notation or name for a concept (or even if there's more than one definition) we put them all up, say "alternative symbol is this". I keep offering the suggestion that it's a good idea to be consistent but if the message keeps coming back that another person prefers to use another notation so you can't win and it's difficult not to call them a prick.
 * This subject got raised at Nijmegen and I was asked what I did about it so I said, it doesn't matter because nobody stays around for longer than a few weeks and once they're gone I change their pages to house style and nobody's the wiser. Everybody laughed.
 * Mind there's still pages from 3 years ago that I never got round to tidying up because they are just so colossally mungy having been vomited from twitipedia in all their 40kBness.
 * GFP: That's what I would have thought. The page on infinity what I put together is what I know. Because there's more to infinity than just the symbol $\infty$ (countable, uncountable, inaccessible, bloody knows whatible) my view is that $\infty$ should only really be used as a shorthand for "tending to the limit" of "greater than any actual real number", with the added proviso that the "extended real number line" and "extended complex plane" have a point / points "at infinity" BUT THEY ARE ONLY FICTIONS. Trouble is, applied mathematicians and other sorts of people like that insist on treating it as an accepted concept that can be treated as a number like any other, and because they tend only to be doing stuff with real-world applications they can get away with it. But in pure maths you can't. --prime mover 16:15, 29 November 2011 (CST)