Talk:Base (mathematics)

Do we really want to redirect?

I was surprised to find base (mathematics) as a redirect to radix which concentrates almost entirely on the common use of "base" in expressions such as base 10. On the other hand, articles such as exponentiation, logarithm and natural logarithm use the term "base" frequently to refer to the more primitive notion of the base as the number b in an expression of the form b^p. In my view this should be disambiguated, but I'm not sure what is the best approach. For the moment I have replaced the redirect with a skeleton mathematical disambiguation, fixed some links, and updated a couple of related articles. Geometry guy 19:14, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

You should start a new page and, if necessary, we can add a dablink at the top of Radix. But leave this page as a redirect. Ewlyahoocom 19:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain your decision? The definition of base as the base of an exponential is more fundamental. Geometry guy 19:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

What about the base of a triangle, as in Area = one-half × Altitude × Base? Shouldn't that go in here as well? DavidCBryant 11:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

At present this is disambiguated at Base, but there is also Base (linear algebra) as a synonym for basis (linear algebra), and the concept of the base field or base scheme in linear algebra, number theory and algebraic geometry. Geometry guy 13:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

We could rename the page. There is also Base (group theory) and Base (topology). So, it doesn't really make sense to call this article the "mathematics" article about bases. - grubber 13:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

This is certainly a possibility. We could then make this the page where the distinct meanings of Base in mathematics are disambiguated: at present some of this disambiguation happens at Base. Alternatively we could move all the disambiguation to Base and delete this page (personally, I find this less attractive). However I have a couple of comments.

• The concepts of base of exponential/logarithm and base of number system are closely related. As far as I am aware "base 10" does not come from the idea that the number system is "based on 10", but that the base of the exponentials involved is 10. The other notions of base are not mathematically related to this one.
• The article radix on bases is clearly intended to be an elementary article on number systems, where it is probably not appropriate to start talking about logarithms. I think it would be better to call it Base (radix), but...
• Talk:radix has a history of discussion about how it should be named and other issues, and it may be difficult to reach consensus for any change.

I think we should think carefully about this one. It may be worth a discussion at WT:WPM. What do you think? Geometry guy 13:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Noting the 2-year gap in comments on this topic I followed the opinions in the Radix talk page and merged this article there. However, the content in Radix which was really about positional notation has also been moved into that article. Dhollm (talk) 23:26, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Geometry guy that it is misleading to redirect this article to radix. In a first step, I will change this redirect to Base, where other uses of the term base in mathematics are listed. In return, Base (exponentiation) will redirect to radix. However, since radix is used only for integer bases and for the reasons stated by Geometry guy, in a second step Base (exponentiation) and radix should be treated separately. Alternatively, radix could be treated as a special case in an article Base (exponentiation). Isheden (talk) 14:07, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Why is this page marked as Disambig.

Unless I am mistaken this page should not have the disambiguation thing at the bottom right? This is the base (mathematics) article. I will remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.217.106 (talk • contribs)