Talk:Rohit Jivanlal Parikh

Vision statement

Vision statement? For heaven's sake, the man's an academic not a company boss. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.162.73 (talk) 18:28, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Repeated additions of unverified negative information by Rootpwd

For the second time User:Rootpwd has added negative information about the subject of the article. In a June 8 edit, Rootpwd effectively accused Rohit Parikh, without evidence, of having been an illegal immigrant to the United States, leading to his alleged self-deportation. In a more recent edit, Rootpwd removed the source for an existing quote and assigned to Parikh, without reference, a statement that is in a direct contradiction with Parikh's published works and could never be uttered by any reasonable person, let alone a distinguished professor in logic. According to Rootpwd, Parikh allegedly claimed that he had "returned to India, becoming its first logician." However, in the editorial introduction "Logic in India"[1] published in 2011 in the Journal of Philosophical Logic, Parikh wrote, "Logic arose in ancient India from the art of conducting philosophical debate, prevalent probably as early as the time of the Buddha in the sixth century BCE." Parikh then went on to mention a number of Indian logicians, predating him by centuries. While Rootpwd provides no source for the alleged statement by Parikh, it is quite clear that Parikh could never have claimed to be the first Indian logician. Attributing these words to Parikh creates a wrong impression of a completely unreasonable person, perhaps, with illusions of grandeur, of someone who would ignore millenia of logical traditions in India in order to claim his own primality. BLP pages must be kept factual and impartial. The unsubstantiated accusations, misrepresentations, and misquotations of Rohit Parikh should stop. BCLadt (talk) 20:52, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Awards and recognition section: unsourced

Since several editors made edits relating to the lack of sources on the page, let me raise another unsourced part of the article, the section on awards and recognition. I have tried and failed to find independent and reliable sources confirming any of these awards, except for

• William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition Prize in 1957;
• Putnam Fellow in 1957.

I have found no sources for the Gibbs Prize. As for the alleged Putnam Competition Prizes in 1955 and 1956, the sources I have found are either inconclusive or contradict the information presented on the page.

Firstly, the complete list of previous Putnam winners that can be found on the Mathematical Association of America's webpage Putnam Competition Individual and Team Winners only mentions "Rohit J. Parikh" from Harvard University once, as one of the individual Putnam Fellows of the 17th competition in 1957 (see p. 16 of the linked pdf). While the Harvard University team won the first place in 1955 and 1956, no mention of Parikh is made there. Further investigation shows that Rohit Parikh was not a member of the Harvard University team in 1955, nor in 1956.

In the report by L. E. Bush on the 15th Putnam Competition of 1955 published in The American Mathematical Monthly 62(8):558-564 in October 1955, the Harvard University Team is presented as consisting of Everett C. Dade, David Mumford, and Kenneth Wilson. They are listed as receiving "prize of forty dollar" each (p.558). "R. J. Parikh, Harvard University" is listed among those who ranked between 6th-10th in the examination, however, no prize is stated for these participants (p.558).

Similarly, in the report by L. E. Bush on the 16th Putnam Competition of 1956 published in The American Mathematical Monthly 64(1):21-27 in January 1957, the Harvard University Team is presented as consisting of David B. Mumford, Rohitkumar Parikh and Kenneth G. Wilson. They are listed as receiving "prize of forty dollar" each (p.21). "Rohitkumar Parikh, Harvard University" is also listed among those who ranked between 6th-14th in the examination, again with no prize stated for these participants (p.22).

Thus, this evidence contradicts the claim that Rohit Parikh was a William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition Prize winner in 1955. As for the 1956,

• the first name of the person who won a prize as a member of Harvard University team does not match the subject of the Wikipedia article and I could found no information on the name change;
• no individual prize is listed under that other name.

I believe, at the very least, the identification of Rohit Jivanlal Parikh with Rohitkumar Parikh would require separate sourcing.

For the record, "Rohit J. Parikh" is listed as a member of the Harvard University team in the report by L. E. Bush on the 17th Putnam Competition of 1957 published in The American Mathematical Monthly 64(7):486-488 in August-September 1957. He is listed as receiving 40 dollars as a member of the team and as receiving 50 dollars personally for ranking between 1st and 5th in the examination on p.486 of the report.

Once again, I could find no information on the Gibbs prize. BCLadt (talk) 10:18, 9 December 2021 (UTC)