User talk:Linas/Archive4

Kaliningrad Oblast

Please watch the article Kaliningrad Oblast as there is one person (user:Ghirlandajo) who does various changes without discussions and dismisses many arguements, even most supported ones (if they are against his Russian agenda), without explaining. He would want and did try to remove information about Lithuania Minor and such, and already removed/tried to remove some true information. Please watch the page so that wouldn't happen in future and valuable information would not be deleted from wikipedia.

asking for support

Hello, I thought that you might support our letter to Centre for Cartography, Vilnius University. We are asking to release their maps found at www.balticdata.info under GFDL licence so they could be used in articles about Lithuania. So far we got 14 people to "sign" it. The draft in very very rough English is available at user:Renata3/letter. If you decide to support it, I'll need just your first and last names together with your user name. You can leave it on my talk page or send it via email: just attact @gmail.com to my user name. Renata3 22:36, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

WP:PMEX

Hi Linas. A request. When you update the status line at pages which are part of WP:PMEX, it is good if you use the five default options, those being listed for example at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/PlanetMath Exchange/37-XX Dynamical systems and ergodic theory. This because Rich and me play with Perl scripts which compute the stats you see on the main page, and so we need well-defined status lines for that. Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov 17:13, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

oops linas 17:19, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Geodesic

Thanks for your wonderful work on geodesic, particularly the new introduction. Very professional. Bravo! - Gauge 06:18, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

AFD: Geeforce

Hi,

I noticed the AFD listing for Geeforce, and posted my response there. I haven't seen the article before, but I believe that geeforce is actually a separate topic from gee, gravity, and gravitation. The second half of the geeforce article should indeed be merged with the gee article. However, the first half deals specifically with a type of force: gravitation-like forces arising from noninertial motion. This is distinct from the gee article, which is a unit of force, and from the articles describing actual gravitational effects.

I have to admit that I'm not familiar with this term specifically, but the article defines it as something that's clearly separate from the other topics. It seems to include such forces as coriolis forces, etc, which are often categorized as "imaginary forces" or "pseudoforces". If the term turns out to be incorrect, then feel free to delete the article; I've never seen it before I noticed the AFD listing. But as the article is written, it seems unsuitable for merging.

I'd be happy to talk more about this, either on the AFD listing or on my talk page. Thanks! -- Creidieki 04:23, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

divisor function

In Divisor function you changed an alpha in a sentence to "a". But the sentence refers to an equation where the standard "alpha" is used. I think an equation below that sentence that has alpha on one side and "a" on the other. So we need to make these consistent, which ever we decide to use. Bubba73 (talk) 00:57, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

I found the thing to be a mixture of a 's and α's and in fact tried to make things consistent by reverting back to the original a 's. I must have missed one. Looking now. 01:00, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Hewitt again

I appreciate your detailed challenges to Hewitt (though it may be better to get administrative help to suppress him, as he answers all challenges glibly). But I am surprised Riemann surfaces have anything to do with Riemann manifolds. Do I read aright? Pdn 18:22, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Not to answer glibly, but a Riemann surface is "merely" a 2D Riemannian manifold. What is remarkable, though, is that Riemann surfaces are at the nexus of so many important branches of mathematics, from complex analysis to number theory, from from hyperbolic geometry to ergodic theory to modular forms. Its no accident that string theory is a kind-of 2D thing; all these remarkable connections come into play.

WP admins do not have the right to "suppress" editors; right now, he's being mostly obnoxious. If he starts breaking rules, then administrative proceedings can be started to revoke privileges. However, a case file of abuse would have to be built up. I don't think things have gone that far. Hope he catches on.

For what its worth, I know I started off on the wrong foot when I started here at WP; I made numerous incorrect/inappropriate edits; just ask Oleg :) So I think there's hope for reform. linas 18:39, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Carl Hewitt yet again

Note that I have challenged Hewitt at various times (including quantum indeterminacy in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle page) but I am also upset at what appears to be unfair attacks on him. --CSTAR 22:01, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, I would hope that contact with various WP editors would convert him into a useful and productive contributor; instead, he seems to be sowing alienation by failing to address valid complaints. While many WP articles are messy, inaccurate, incomplete, and faulty in a large variety of ways, one may argue that these are at least honest mistakes and attributable to human faults. Its a bit more of a problem when a credentialled authority is running around behaving like a crank. While often cranky myself, I am at least trying to be as wise as I can be; he does not seem to be making that effort. I was rather provocative today; I'll tone it down. linas 22:20, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Linas - I must object to your treatment of Carl Hewitt in the strongest terms. Your ridiculous statements amount to flaming, something that is against the rules of Wikipedia. If you do not cease, decist, and apologize to Carl, I will contact Carl about initiating a RFC against you. Be advised that I have already threatenned Carl similarly, but the egregousness of your actions have already come to overshadow his. --EMS | Talk 22:31, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I was adding this message while you were writing the above. I am glad to see that you are willing to tone it down, but I still feel that you went well over the line, and need to apologize now. --EMS | Talk 22:31, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't see things that way. I beleive that all of my statements were factual, and they were not meant to be inflamatory. linas 22:58, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

"In his dotage", "not the real Carl Hewitt", "pseudoscience". You have used those terms about him and his work in the category delete page and the actor model talk pages. They are totally inflamatory. They are totally out of line. IMO, they are not factual, and are not to made even if they are! (I will make an exception for the allegation of fraud, but even then you must be able to prove it first.) I am not pleased with Carl and his self-promotion campaign either, but your sending ignorant flames at him does not help our cause and in fact is more egregous that anything that he has done so far. I cannot and will not approve of your behavior.

I expect to see your apology on Carl's talk page soon. --EMS | Talk 00:16, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

• Never made the dotage remark, that was someone else.
• MIT has a long tradition of pranksterism, a tradition which prides itself on the complexity and cleverness of the prank. It is quite possible that this whole thing is some sort of prank being played by an impersonator, with the target being WP or the real Carl or both.
• Its pseudoscience, I think the thread speaks for itself.

linas 02:42, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Apology

You are right about the dotage remark. So I apologize for criticizing you for that.

Beyond that, if this is a prank, then it has gone on for an amazingly long time. Feel free to investigate. If you are right it would be good to know, but I very much prefer to give User:CarlHewitt the benefit of the doubt on this.

I did say its possible, although I beleive not likely. linas 04:55, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Also, I do not see outright pseudoscience here. Although I am a software engineer, I lack enough knowledge of the academic side of the field to be able to say whether the actor model is bogus or not. As presented, it makes some sense. Certainly you should able to look at the references listed and decide whether this is for real or not. Why not do that?

The actor model, itself, is legit; I have read papers about it more than a decade ago; and more generally have read a few papers on process calculi. By slapping on the pseudoscience label, I was trying to address the behavior of the author, who was behaving as if he were a crank. I'd hoped a bit of shock might provoke a reply that was something other than the back-handed dismissal of complaints. Clearly, the "shock therapy" was a bit too much. linas 04:55, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

"Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point". Maybe Carl is guilty of the same, but all that you did was to add fuel to the fire. His articles do not need that treatment. I repeat: If you can impeach them then please do so. However, what you did was a petty form of vandalism, and could have invited retaliation. It was not wise, and I hope that you will refrain from doing that kind of thing again. --EMS | Talk 05:21, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I assure you that I do not see a prank here. Instead I see Carl Hewitt on a self-promotion campaign, and run amok. Beyond that, I once again ask you not to allege fraud without having some solid proof of it. I appreciate you suspiscions, but the contents of that article, especially the references, need to be impeached first. --EMS | Talk 04:26, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, in his last post, he states that his collegues are skeptical of the quality of information in WP. Specifically, the social mechanisms for dealing with misinformation on WP are called into question. He then states that he is engaged in an experiment concerning WP, although it is ambiguous as to what the experiment might be. He does, however, imply that his collegues are actively (but silently, using email) reviewing the content that he is placing in WP. Is it possible that his "pioneering experiment" is to intentionally insert cranky material into WP, and then see how the community reacts? Again, I cannot tell; its plausible, but unlikely. linas 04:55, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Uniformatarianism

Our contact in the past has generally been cordial, and generally, we have been on the same side on most issues, so perhaps an explanation of my staunch defense of Hewitt and his WP category is in order. There are several issues which I will try to enumerate

1. The nature of what I consider to be unfair and underhanded attacks on Hewitt, to which unfortunately I think you contributed (although you weren't the worst offender).
2. The specious nature of some of the arguments. I particularly object to User:Hillman in particular, who seems to like to raise the issue of credentials in discussions, rather than discuss the facts of the matter. You may have been around when Caroline Thompson asked me what my credentials were (that exchange with my response to her is in one of my archived user talk pages User talk:CSTAR/Bell). Frankly, Hewitt's academic credentials are generally more reliable than Hillman's, so I am surprised Hillman is so eager to bring this up. In any case, though reliance on credentials may lead to a more reliable WP, that is clearly not WP policy and raising the issue of credentials is not customary.
3. Failure to separate what the discussion was about (the category Relativistic Information Science) from other perceptions about Hewitt, such as possible "crankiness". Hewitt may indeed be susceptible to the charge of self-promotion, but again I have brought that yto his attention in a civil way.

I have been involved in other such disputes besides the perennial Bell's theorem affair, viz. User:Lumidek vs User:Afshar on Afshar experiment, where on the merits of the case User:Lumidek was unquestionably correct. However, there is process, and the application of accepted dispute resolution processes, along with points 2) and 3) above is part and parcel of the general principle of uniformatarianism not only in science, but in human relations. Note Lumidek's response on my talk page for that.

As far as the possibility of a prank, I think that's unlikely. Moreover, I am pretty confident that the user USer:CarlHewitt is the "same as" the Carl Hewitt (formerly of) MIT. Thanks.--CSTAR 22:45, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

And you did well; I've no gripes, and I hope we'll enjoy each others company in the future. I suppose that it was I who caused this thing to escalate so big & so far. When a simple question about a fundamental aspect of the theory was brushed off by Hewitt as a "minor detail", I did rather explode. Let me apologize on behalf of User:Hillman; he was also reacting to the absurdity of the reply. Neither of us were aware of your earlier interactions with Hewitt. I think most of the "regulars" here are operating on more or less the same set of norms, and for the most part, I see things going pretty smoothly. linas 23:45, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

My thanks to you for apologizing. In order to get Carl out of our hair, we also need to be out of his. This helps the process along a lot. --EMS | Talk 05:21, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Unicode

Hi, Linas. I just saw your comment to User:Curps. You mentioned that you had no idea how to edit the Unicode γ character. You may not have realized it, but it can be edited just like any other character. You can delete it using backspace or delete, you can select it by dragging over it with your mouse or using shift, and so on—even copy-and-paste it if you like. It is no different than editing any of the other characters; it doesn't have to be on your keyboard to edit it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:18, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Bolding "for terminology"??

What makes you think bold is prescribe "for terminology"? Wikipedia's bolding convention says the title word or title phrase is to be bolded at its first appearance, regardless of whether it defines a term or not, so that's not "for terminology". Last I checked, the style manual said that when one writes about a term rather than using it to write about what it refers to, one italicizes it. This has been standard elsewhere than Wikipedia for many decades. If one writes

In zoology, a dog is an animal that barks.

then that's about the animal rather than about the term. But if one writes

The word dog is often misunderstood.

or

Dog is a term used in zoology.

then that's about the word rather than about the animal, so it's italicized. Michael Hardy 20:23, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I presume this is in reference to the article on ergodic theory. It seemed to be the only article that defined recurrence time, occurence time, and so on, so I made #REDIRECT's and made the terms bold, so that they would pop out. Was that wrong? linas 21:37, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

You made metrically transitive bold and you de-italicized it. Michael Hardy 23:11, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry. I did stumble when I saw that. linas 23:13, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Mathematics

Thanks for your contribution to Why 10 dimensions?. My original goal was to try to translate any mathematical jargon in that article into plain English and simple descriptions of physical processes. Mathematicians are usually talking to each other in technical jargon. Any additional contributions you can make to explain the jargon will be appreciated. --JWSchmidt 03:38, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Please vote on list of lists, a featured list candidate

Please vote at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of lists of mathematical topics. Michael Hardy 20:30, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Edit conflicts

I have made a great many edit contributions in many areas, including engineering, economics, psychology, pop culture, household objects, computer science, science, and math. The only place I find myself in constant edit wars is with you. This is due to your tendency to remove anything you don't like, without much of an explanation. In those cases where there is an actual error, I am happy to make a correction. When you do give an explanation, it frequently seems to boil down to "not worded in a sufficiently complex way to incorporate all the possible intricacies". Writing in such a manner would make the text inaccessible to a general audience. I do not remove the complex theory sections you write, and neither should you remove the introductory sections I write. StuRat 19:55, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

If that is what you believe, then I was being too polite. Let me be blunt: the sections you added were wrong. They had errors. linas 03:36, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Hewitt

Please see and comment on Talk:Quantum indeterminacy#Dispute status of this article. --CSTAR 18:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Working on it. A lot to read, there. linas 23:41, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm strangely attracted to crackpottery. But I've also worked on more sober articles in mathematics. My professional interest is quantum information. I noticed happily that the Bloch sphere article which I wrote most of is the featured article in quantiki.--CSTAR 05:29, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, so am I, its what makes life interesting. Actually, all my edits on WP are supposed to be a very round-about way of studying QM; I'm surveying the land for tools that can be brought to bear on quantum chaos. linas 12:39, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Actor model, mathematical logic, and quantum physics

I have put this article up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Actor model, mathematical logic, and quantum physics

Please consider voting. Thank-you. DV8 2XL 01:53, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Please see my latest comments on that page. You must think I'm nuts to have made them, but I like giving people, yes even Hewitt, due process. You have behaved appropriately (I don't object to you're voting to delete, I almost did so myself).---CSTAR 02:59, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

No, don't think your nuts. I'd prefer to give people an infinite number of chances to reform, as long as I'm not the one having to clean up the mess. Not sure how to reply to your comments. Part of me wants to read the citations you mention, part of me is already 3 projects deep and isn't ready to embark on another tangent. My personal suspicion is that much of what's "mysterious" about QM is entangled in quantum chaos, which is why I'm struggling with classical chaos right now. linas 04:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

What? You don't think that CSTAR is nuts? Come on Linas, I think you had too much chaos for the day. Disentangle yourself real quick from all that quantum stuff, and without any uncertainty altogether read those citations CSTAR told you to. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:08, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Good god. I'm acquiring a reputation.--CSTAR 05:11, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Welcome back, Oleg. Your absence was felt. After all, you're one of the crazy ones too, watching a thousand articles and beating back the newbie edits. linas 08:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah yes. Laplacians on fractals. May I recommend Jun Kigami's Analysis on Fractals with the idea to consider Schrodinger operators on these spaces. There are fascinating connections between this stuff and metric geometry a la Gromov. If you haven't already, look at Metric Structures ..by Gromov at al, although most of that is for length spaces which may be fractal but are always connected.

No hadn't seen those yet. More reading ahead.

The Hewitt problems unfortunately are not going to end. As you point out his stuff is leaking out. Bad.--CSTAR 05:01, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, there may be hope. I note that quantum indeterminacy in computation has been cleaned up, including a move to a more neutral article title. linas 08:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

User:Tosha

Do you really think you know more differential geometry than him? Charles Matthews 09:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

No, but I have no idea what he's going on about. As far as I can tell, he's just reverting the article to the horrid mess that it was six months ago. (Its not that good now, but it was worse then). linas 09:45, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

This is interesting. You are being told "you're not the expert, so don't edit this article". This sounds very much like what you keep claiming regarding my basic intro additions to surface. I have never found any Wiki policy claiming that only the most senior expert in any field is allowed to edit an article, however. Most of what you said also applies to your removal of my material there:

"I have no idea what he's going on about. As far as I can tell, he's just reverting the article to the horrid mess that it was a month ago. (It's not that good now, but it was worse then)."

StuRat 15:04, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, except that I tried to explain to you several times what was wrong with your edits. linas 15:17, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Not at the beginning, you didn't. I have decided to do a similar fix to Boolean algebra/Boolean logic. That is, to split it up between a mathematicians article (the current one), which will remain incomprehensible to non-matematicians, and create a new article surface (computer), which will be written for the general audience, neither requiring that the readers have a degree in mathematics nor a degree in computer science. StuRat 17:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Please note that he's the expert. Except in the English language. He's the leading differential geometer writing here, AFAIK. Charles Matthews 09:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Interpretation of quantum mechanics

I've added a bit to Interpretation of quantum mechanics. I was hoping that you could look at it and view the talk page, and offer an opinion on what information we should present in the article, and how this information should be organized. Thanks for your time. RK 15:49, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Your additions look reasonable; I haven't finished reading the article, but overall, its a quite nice article, although it does have some problems with literary flow in some places.So far, it looks fairly comprehensive, although it might benefit by having some "example interpretations" near the beginning, to anchor the discussion a bit. linas 17:17, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

(a) "Your article"? Please look at the history

(b) You just made a change to that article which doesn't make much sense, as far as I could tell.

--CSTAR 18:09, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

CSTAR, You must be hung-over from that party last night. I replied on the talk page. linas 18:23, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Nope, no party last night. I replied to your reply.--CSTAR 18:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Linas, please correct this. --CSTAR 18:38, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

OK I corrected it. Note that I didn't revert, but I did modify the definitions of φ_up and φ_down so that they're normalized. Notice that strictly speaking, these vectors can't be identified to the state either. It is that vector modulo phase. But if you think that's clearer, well OK. BTW this experience confirms my belief that it is preferable to discuss before reverting or changing an article, especially after someone has worked extensively on it (unless the person is a manifest lunatic).--CSTAR 00:41, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

It seemed to be so "obviously" a typo, that I hided myself for even bringing it up on the talk page. linas 13:43, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Integration of Second Derivative

Linas, if you are so inclined and have time, please consider taking a look at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#Integration of Second Derivative and offering any light on the solution. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:19, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Done. Although the question about electron mass a bit farther down was a lot more fun! linas 05:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Chern classes

Thanks for your edits to Chern class. However, please try to avoid being rude when others attempt to engage you in conversation. The bits that you removed, about symmetric polynomials being generated by an expansion of the determinant, was indeed a non-sequiter, but was meant to be of an expository nature, providing insight. linas 06:30, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll keep it in mind in the future, thank you. However, it does tend to put me in a rude mood when my good faith submission is auto-deleted by a bot... Sorry.

The determinantal expansions perhaps should be there, but they need to be connected to the real meat of the example somehow. I will do my best to see that they are properly incorporated.

Also, based on your comments on User talk:Titoxd, are we to infer that you are Jurgen Jost (author of books on Riemann surfaces)? linas 06:42, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

A Riemann surface is different from a Riemannian manifold. UPDATE: Please call me Dr. Jost from now on.

I don't enjoy seeing friction between well-intentioned editors. Let me say that I appreciate both your efforts to upgrade our pages. Charles Matthews 11:11, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Linas, Please have a look at the Chern class#Basic idea and motivation section, and see if you have anything to add. I wasn't sure whether to delete the "technical" flag. Chern classes are fairly technical after all, but I hope this helps to bring a more general audience into the fold. Best, 151.204.6.171

Dr. Jost, I am absolutely honoured and delighted to make you acquaintance. I have read bits & pieces of your books and have found them to be marvelously clear and well written. I will look at what you have added, but I can only do so as a student, and not as an expert. I am dabbling in many things, but only as an amateur; while I have a diploma that allows me to call myself Dr. Vepstas, in all actuality I am an academic fallen by the wayside, wondering how to carve out more time for my mathematical interests. linas 03:55, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Dr. Vepstas, this is Dr. Alexandrov. Just wondering, how is weather in Texas? Is the local sports team doing well? Hacking the Linux kernel should be fun I guess. I hope you are not pushing yourself too hard. Well, it was nice to talk to you. Have a good one! Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:27, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Dr. Alexandrov, the weather is beautiful this time of year; thank you. The people in my office use this term "sports team" in their hallway conversations, but I am not sure I know what it means. The kernel is fine; its not that I push to hard, its that I'm just craving more spice in my life ..., "more pickles, more lettuce, more than the ordinary grind." is how the Iggy Pop song on the radio put it. linas 00:29, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Drs. Vepstas and Alexandrov, nice to hear that you're both enjoying the weather. It's bloody raining here.Silly rabbit 18:46, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

P.S. It may take a few days to give it a look and reply on the content linas 03:55, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Electron mass on WP:RD/S

I suppose your quasar article is what I was looking for, so if you have the reference, please let me know. I'd also be interested in the "mass change is equivalent to the Hubble expansion" reference. regards, Baad 12:47, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

The second reference is easy, its covered in the book right here in front of me: "Space-Time-Matter, Modern Kaluza-Klein Theory", By Paul S. Wesson, 1999, World Scientific press. Section 4.2, pages 104-105. I just read it the other day :-) This is a particular result of Wesson's style of formulating and interpreting a "classical" (non-quantum) Kaluza-Klein theory. I have no idea how controversial or acceptable this may be in the academic community.

The quasar result will require googling for the phrases "change in fine structure constant" and "extreme red shift"; I'm not sure where I saw it.

Please do let me know how your investigations progress. You are right; with current measurements of the fine structure const to 10 decimal places or so, even small changes in its value might become observable in a decade or so. That's certainly an interesting topic, and it would be quite remarkable if such a change were observed! Nobel-prize material, I daresay. linas 04:16, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

AfD aka VfD on Philosophical interpretation of classical physics

We could use your opinion on this article at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Philosophical interpretation of classical physics

I have nominated as original research but feel that it is important to solicit additional opinions on the matter before an administrator is forced to make a decision. As I mention in the discussion on the [[AfD page - I think the underlying idea - to discuss the impact of classical Newtonian physics has had on other discpiplines and the impact that QM should (but in many cases has not fully) had on those same disciplines - is an interesting one; however, I need help in determining if existing article should be the starting point for such a discussion (or if this topic is covered elsewhere). Thx in adv

I noticed that you made some comments but haven't come down one way or another - perhaps you could help in finding some middle ground with David? -Trödel|talk 10:29, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll have to re-read; might take a few days, I'm really busy. linas 04:25, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Astral projection

Liked your edit summary. Frankly, the whole article should read "Astral projection is bullshit." — ceejayoz ^talk 20:15, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment. However, I did not say or mean to imply that its bullshit; it is a topic worthy of contemplation. linas 20:40, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Hypergeometric series

Hi Linas,

thank you for your welcoming note and your encouragement. I did not find a button to send an e-mail, so I hope you read this. Just a comment on the edit in "Hypergeometric series" before my edits. In fact, I made this, too, but before I created the account, so it's anonymous. I still think, $z$ should be ommitted from these formulas, but as you reverted this, I should maybe give some additional explanation:

If we have a series $\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }a_{n}z^{n}$, by convention, the coeffitients of the series are $a_{n}$, while the terms or summands are $a_{n}z^{n}$.

Now consider the the exponential series

$1+z+{\frac {1}{2}}z^{2}+{\frac {1}{6}}z^{3}+\cdots$.

Then the ratio of two successive terms is given by ${\frac {z}{n}}$ while the ratio of two successive coeffitients is given by ${\frac {1}{n}}$. We are talking about coefficients here, aren't we?

Maybe I missunderstood an important point about these functions; if you insist in the necessity of $z$ in these formulas, please tell my your reasoning.

Regards, Thomas (Thomas Bliem 10:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)).

Right, except that that is an unusual definition of a series. If $\{a_{n}\}$ is a sequence, then the series is $\sum _{n}a_{n}$ (there is no assumed z^n in the definition of a series, in general). Rather, the article is explicitly trying to discuss the ratio a_n = tilda-p/tilda-q, from which it factors out a factor of z/n leaving the ratio p/q which is now the traditional hypergeometric series. That is, the ratio of two successive coefficients is tilda-p/tilda-q = (z/n)(p/q). The exponential function has p=q=1. The point of the exercise is to demonstrate why there is a factor of z^n/n! that is traditionally removed (and not just z^n alone, or 1/n! alone). Without this, the intro section doesn't hang together.

Anyway, thank you very much for your concern; we really like conscientious editors on wikipedia. If you can come up with some alternate way of stating the above, I suppose that's OK, as long as the article is better as a result.

Oh, and in general, we should have the conversation on the talk page of the article. at elast on a matter such as this. linas 15:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

(copied above to Talk:Hypergeometric series)

Inductive dimension

Thanks for your additions to inductive dimension. Do you actually have the reference you cited? Have you checked the definitions I gave? I was kind of nervous about relying on a Usenet post, even from a respectable contributor (I know I've posted my share of careless errors to Usenet). --Trovatore 18:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I do have that text, and funny timing, but I've been reading topology recently, so I had it on top of my stack. I decided I need to understand topology better. I will read it carefully; it might take me a few days, since I seem to be working on several projects at once and making little progress on any of them. Nag me, I respond to nagging. linas 03:10, 17 November 2005 (UTC)