Wikipedia:Featured article review/Emmy Noether/archive1

Emmy Noether[edit]

Featured article candidates/Emmy Noether

Featured article review/Emmy Noether/archive1

Notified: Scartol, WillowW, WikiProject Germany, WikiProject Biography, WikiProject Mathematics, WikiProject Women's History, WikiProject Women scientists, WikiProject Physics, WikiProject Women writers, WikiProject Socialism, WikiProject Women in Green, 2023-08-20

I am nominating this featured article for review because there are numerous citation concerns, including an orange banner at the top of the "Contributions to mathematics and physics" section and an uncited "List of doctoral students" section. There's also a lot of great prose describing math concepts, but much of this does not describe how Noether contributed to these concepts and I don't think much of it is necessary for the reader to understand how Noether contributed to the ideas. I think this would need a math specialist to help improve the article. Z1720 (talk) 20:26, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I added a source for the entire doctoral students section. Also, far be it from me to ignite another "anti-intellectualism" GAR/FAR firestorm, but the line "I don't think much of it is necessary for the reader to understand" rubs me the wrong way. Yes, to understand Noether's accomplishments it is necessary to understand the mathematics and physics concepts she worked with. That said, I agree that the contributions section could be better sourced; we used to allow unsourced background material that we would expect any student of the subject to have some familiarity with, but those days are gone. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:41, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To expand upon my comment about what the reader needs to understand: after reading the article when making the nomination, I found that some sections did a great job explaining the math, but struggled to connect it to Noether. For example, in the "Background on abstract algebra" section, Noether is not mentioned until paragraph 4. I would expect Noether's contributions to be more prominent and mentioned first, then the mathematical principles explained by connecting it to Noether's contributions. I think the "First epoch (1908–1919): Physics", all the second epoch, and all the third epoch sections do this well; I think the other sections need to feature Noether more prominently, which might involve removing some information, and will probably involve moving around some information. Z1720 (talk) 22:30, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We get an issue with accessibility or focus whichever way you slice it: either there's maths explanations with nothing to do with Noether, or the descriptions are only accessible to those familiar with elementary algebra. If you don't understand what a group is, it's impossible to understand Noether's contributions to maths. I don't think you can reverse the order of it.

The subject matter is necessarily extremely technical. What might not be obvious to layreaders is that (e.g.) the group representations paragraph is child's play compared to the statement of Noether's problem. This is the dumbing down as far as possible without distorting the facts. I can wax lyrical about group representations but Galois theory makes my head hurt. By focusing on big picture ("it's all about symmetries", "like prime numbers") and toy examples (the discriminant, polynomial splitting fields), but also giving the full statements of what Noether studied, I think the article does quite well. I feel it's best left as is unless someone is jumping to make it a big project of theirs.

My comments at Talk:Emmy Noether#WP:URFA/2020 were to indicate that I do not think there are major citation issues—it's more a style issue, as convention has changed since 2008. I do feel this article would benefit from a mathematician giving it a full copyedit, with an algebra textbook to hand for some inline citations. — Bilorv (talk) 22:10, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bilorv said more or less what I was going to. The ordering in the "Background on abstract algebra" passage makes sense because, well, it's background. It has to cover concepts that were introduced a half-century before Noether was even born. That's just how math works: it's a cumulative subject, and we can't always take a thin slice out of it and hope for a meaningful result.

Much of the uncited material can probably be found in any textbook on the area (e.g., the definition of a ring or a group representation is standard stuff). I did what I could with the books that I had near my desk, but I am too tired to do more and need a very very long break. XOR'easter (talk) 00:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe the "List of doctoral students" section is necessary in the first place. "All" (i.e. those with wikilinks) the notable students are in the infobox and a table list of their dissertations and defenses seem somewhat superfluous. Sgubaldo (talk) 02:00, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to remove the section. Feel free to revert or add it back if you disagree. Sgubaldo (talk) 02:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I also realised there were two separate "Recognition" sections, which I merged together. Sgubaldo (talk) 02:24, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with this removal. Everything in the infobox should be a summary of main-article text. The infobox should not supplant the article. See MOS:INFOBOX: When considering any aspect of infobox design, keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article. If you include the list of doctoral students only in the infobox, then readers looking for a non-superficial summary will not find that information. Or, to put it another way, if it is so important to the article that it needs to be summarized in the infobox, so that even low-attention-span readers skimming the infobox find it, then it is also so important to the article that it should be covered properly in the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:29, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I know the infobox shouldn't supplant the article. My reasoning was that the infobox could have the names of all her notable doctoral students while the article went into more detail (which it does, in the "Graduate students and influential lectures" section; I recognise it's in need of some more sentences about her doctoral students specifically). I still don't believe a list of their dissertations and defense dates is of benefit to the average reader, but I'll leave it. Sgubaldo (talk) 20:11, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not wedded to the specific table format. A more prose-like format such as a bulleted list might be better. The titles of the dissertations are less important than their overall topics and what happened afterward to each student. And the placement of the list of students in the article would make more sense in the section you mention than as an appendix at the end. But if one is looking for a complete list of her students (or, what the infobox lists, her bluelinked students) one won't find anything resembling that in the "Graduate students and influential lectures" section in its current state. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:46, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. After the citation issues are resolved, perhaps the "Graduate students and influential lectures" section can be expanded to include more information about her doctoral students, but I don't think it should make or break the article's Featured status. Sgubaldo (talk) 16:09, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with David Eppstein that the doctoral students should be mentioned in the body. An exhaustive list makes sense to me, with dissertation topic (e.g. p-adic numbers) and anything the student was later known for. It would also make sense to incorporate them into the chronological account of her life, but the issue might be that she had so many notable students that it could overwhelm the rest of the section's focus. — Bilorv (talk) 21:32, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree with ensuring they are mentioned in the body. My reasoning was that dissertation titles and defense dates are not that important. Sgubaldo (talk) 13:53, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the dates are worth keeping. The titles, if we have topics instead, can go. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For now, I've added an initial mention of the two Erlangen students in the "Graduate students and influential lectures" section. They don't seem too notable though and could probably be moved up to the "Teaching period" one instead. Unfortunately, I don't think I'd be of much help with the citation issues. Sgubaldo (talk) 01:27, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Work seems to have slowed down, but several sourcing problems remain. Are editors still working on this? Z1720 (talk) 14:13, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I won't have the time to properly sit down and crack on with this until towards the end of March. After that, I'm happy to continue working on the doctoral students part. As I said above, the citation issues in the "Contributions to mathematics and physics" section may require someone with more expertise than me in the area. Besides, beyond those two issues, I think the article is worthy of FA status, and I made some structural changes that made the article (in my view) neater. Sgubaldo (talk) 15:14, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Improvements have definately been made (thanks everyone!) but I still have citation concerns, as there are some paragraphs which do not have any inline citations. Would it be helpful if I tagged the areas that I felt needed citations for others to address? Z1720 (talk) 16:07, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would be helpful. Sgubaldo (talk) 16:51, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note a seems to use inline references, which should be converted to inline citations (footnotes). Z1720 (talk) 17:07, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Working my way through as many of those as I can. Will update when I stall out. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:09, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, now we're forbidden even footnotes from having parenthetical citations within them? So we need a separate footnote inside the footnote to be the reference? No. Just no. This blind fanaticism serves no encyclopedic purpose. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:47, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I misindented my comment. I've been working through the cn tags. Haven't looked into the note. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:58, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My reply was aimed more at Z1720 than you. Going through cn tags and finding citations for them is a very useful thing to be doing. Putting nested footnotes into footnotes because of an aversion to mixing footnote text with footnote citations, less useful. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:36, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:35, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Firefangledfeathers? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The inline reference issue in Note a has been fixed. Two cn tags remain, and the section on her second epoch might need some citations too. The rest of the article seems good. Beyond that, I had the idea of making her doctoral students part of the prose rather than an explicit table at the bottom of the article, but that shouldn't make or break FA-status. Sgubaldo (talk) 20:51, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Sgubaldo. Haven't given up on the last few cns. Just been busy. I'll either fix them soon or throw in the towel. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:00, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I found something in Page 99 of Emmy Noether: The Mother of Modern Algebra by Margaret B. W. Tent for the phrase 'Her family paid for her room and board and supported her academic work' as mentioned on the talk page, but i'm a little skeptical of using it as a source since it's mostly aimed at teenagers and the author takes some literary creativity and makes up conversations between historical figures. No luck on the other cn tag yet. Sgubaldo (talk) 12:29, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the "Her family paid" line. XOR'easter (talk) 21:57, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]