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Happy editing! VanTucky Talk 20:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

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Initial context setting

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The following is a really bad way to start an article:

Consider two structures   and  , possibly of different signatures.

You haven't told the lay reader who finds this article whether this is supposed to be about, e.g. the building of houses ("structures"), organizations (a church council or a commercial firm is a "structure"), etc. That this is supposed to be about mathematical logic needs to be said in a way that the non-mathematician will understand immediately. Michael Hardy (talk) 13:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

You are absolutely right, can you do it for me, please? :) The only thing i can say in my defence is that i did link the word structure, so the reader had a chance... --Cokaban (talk) 13:17, 30 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hello

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I am very glad to see that we have a new active model theory editor. I am sorry that you have run into Gregbard with your first mathematical article – but then, this kind of encounter adds the MMORPG dimension to Wikipedia that makes it so addictive. --Hans Adler (talk) 17:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

I know I'm terrible! Can it. I tell you what Hans, I think you are all right in general, but I don't like your style. Furthermore, you and the other mathematicians seem determined to close your minds to covering even the most basic philosophical background for these concepts. That's what philosophers call being anti-intellectual and unreflective. If you don't understand something intellectually, you don't understand it AT ALL. At least I am capable of deferring to experts in their own areas. I've been patient with you guys up to now. Step off. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 09:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Hello Pontiff Greg Bard, thanks for visiting my User Page. (Thanks to Hans Adler too.) I will respond here to one of the questions/assertions you made elsewhere, and hope that you will be able to answer the others yourself. Here we go: I did not try to beat you up --- my main (and maybe even only?) goal was to get trough to you. --Cokaban (talk) 10:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Okay, lets take it easy on each other. My goal in creating that article was to cover the concept of "one person has a different interpretation of things than another" Here I am thinking that people of all kinds might be able to benefit from it. Maybe two regular people having a disagreement could be able to map it out and have some understanding. The goal of these editors seems to be that it will only be useful and understandable to mathematicians. So can you see why I would be very upset over all of this. I think you need to think about the needs of the whole community over the very limited interests of the math department. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 10:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Interpretation (logic)

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Please look at new lede of interpretation (logic) and make any comments at new section at end of 50 pages of discussion. Bless,--Philogo 00:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)--Philogo 00:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I would like to give a short disclaimer first. I cannot really judge if the lede or Interpretation (logic) is good, because i do not know neither what Logic is, nor what Philosophy is. I am only somewhat familiar with common layman usage of these words. I only know what Mathematical Logic is, and i am familiar with some basics of it. I can think of a few non-mathematical interpretations of Mathematical Logic (yet another meaning of interpretation :) ), and it seems that this is the kind of logic the article/lede is currently about. I also understand the phrase "common-sense logic". The phrase "philosophical logic" evokes some associations, but nothing clear. I will try to be useful however. --Cokaban (talk) 11:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
The article and other under the logic banner will be sucessful for the intended audience, therefore, if you for instance come to understand the terms you mentione and any other used in the article(s). If you do not unerstand the terms used then we might just as well write the articles in double-dutch for all the purpose they would serve. (Do we have a little template thingy that says "Definition needed" like the "citation needed" one?) I have been banging on for some time about the need to be both precise and clear and suitable for the intended audience, the latter not being professional mathematicians, logicans, or philosophers. You then are the best judge of that. If you look at my discussion page, I have a message from a reader who said how clear and helful were the logic articles she had read. That is praise indeed, and more liek that are sought.--Philogo 13:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Monoidal category

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Hi, I have undone a change you have made to that article. Please comment if you disagree. Also, what do you mean by “usual monoids are exactly the monoids in the monoidal category of sets with Cartesian product”? What are “the monoids” in a monoidal category? Best regards —Quilbert (talk) 11:40, 5 August 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hello Quilbert, I am following "Categories for Working Mathematician" by Saunders Mac Lane. Let M be a monoidal category with multiplication * (for Set category it would be the cartesian product). To simplify the definition of a monoid in M, let me assume here that M is a strict monoidal category, that is the natural isomorphisms in the definition are identities. Then a monoid in M is an object m together with a two arrows to m: a multiplication m*m -> m and an identity 1 -> m, which satisfy the usual laws for the usual monoids, but expressed purely in terms of arrows. What do you think about this as a reason to call the category monoidal? I do not know the true historical explanation of the name --Cokaban (talk) 12:00, 5 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
Interesting, thanks for the clarification. I was assuming that they are called monoidal categories because, well, the objects of a strict monoidal category actually form a monoid … —Quilbert (talk) 23:02, 5 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
The condition is stronger than that, because the "multiplication" also acts on arrows, and is a bifunctor. Mac Lane writes that they are called monoidal because the bifunctor is associative. It is not clear to me if this reason it the official one, but there seem to be a good reason. For example, with the "general" definition of a monoid (in a monoidal category), the strict monoidal categories are monoids in the monoidal category of categories (with respect to the product of categories) :). So i do not think that a simple or one-sided relation between usual monoids and monoidal categories (like "objects in a strict monoidal category form a monoid") would be a complete justification of the name, despite what Mac Lane writes. I think that notions of a monoid and a monoidal category are complementary: monoidal categories allow to generalize the notion of a usual monoid, and with this more general definition they become monoids themselves in the monoidal category of categories and functors. (Of course one needs to be careful and talk about the category of "small" categories, etc.). --Cokaban (talk) 07:36, 6 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
For me, that all amounts to roughly the same reason. It seems obvious that monoid objects are called so just because in the monoidal category of sets they are the usual monoids. And monoidal categories are a generalisation of strict monoidal categories. Saying that the latter are the monoid objects in the monoidal category of categories is, when taking the motivation for the term “monoid object” into account, about the same as saying that their objects form a monoid, with morphism filled in in a natural way. But that statement is a bit vague, of course, so I take your phrasing for the best explanation. —Quilbert (talk) 18:46, 6 August 2012 (UTC)Reply
I agree with the change, i think i was trying to explain what a "natural isomorphism" is, but this is a bit off topic. --Cokaban (talk) 12:07, 5 August 2012 (UTC)Reply

Mediation?

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Hi Cokaban.

I just saw your post to the "accused or alleged" section.

I recently contributed a carefully worded reference to the this issue that was immediately reverted by admin. I reverted it back, not knowing that move would earn me the honor of starting "engaging in a revert war", which clearly was not my intention.

A declassified memo exists that informed LBJ on the Monday following the assassination that he had to "convince the people LHO did it and did it alone" and that he was to form a "commission" to appear official avoid prying eyes from Congress or other gov bodies who'd want serious answers and fact. I will search the reference and try to get a direct link to it.

I totally agree with what you've written. The facts are truly there, but they are "inconvenient" facts and stray from the urban myth which is the parroting of gov provided untruths. What can we do?

Thanks for reading this, and thanks in advance for a reply. 4eyes (talk) 14:43, 23 November 2013 (UTC)4eyesReply

Hi, thanks for the message. I do not have time or desire to follow this issue too closely, maybe i will be just looking to the talk page from time to time. I am trying to use common sense and logic to prevent publishing beliefs worded as facts in Wikipedia. The best thing i've come up with is to make a reference request at least. It is not possible to argue with anything when the person you talk to cites good, solid, reliable sources and the link directs not to the sources, but to WP:RS. I am not even interested in fighting for the truth (which we may never know) as long as beliefs are not stated as facts in Wikipedia. --Cokaban (talk) 15:59, 23 November 2013 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I understand. I found the official memo and source and have inserted the info which is not "belief", but rather fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4eyes (talkcontribs) 16:53, 23 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Differential notation for Lebesgue measure

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I agree with your edit to Differential form changing ‘ ’ to ‘ ’ when it refers to Lebesgue measure on the x-line; this is a very sensible notation. But you didn't change all of the instances, so I edited some more. —Toby Bartels (talk) 19:22, 13 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. --Alexey Muranov (talk) 19:25, 13 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

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Question with Dijkstra's Algorithm

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Hi! I noticed you made some of the recent changes to the Dijkstra's algorithm page, I don't know if this was one of your changes, but I assume you must be familiar with the subject. I believe the 6th step of the Algorithm has a typo, but since it would change the algorithm's function I was hoping to get a second opinion. I have noted it on the talk page. Botlord (talk) 06:08, 21 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

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December 2018

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Your recent editing history at Euler totient function shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See BRD for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.
Per WP:BRD, you do not revert back when you yourself have already been reverted. Jasper Deng (talk) 21:53, 26 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Lead of function composition

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Note that there is now repetition in the second sentence of the same content that you added in the first sentence. Also take into account that 'function composition' can be both a noun and a verb. Before, the sentence was explaining the verb in simple words, then the second sentence in full precision, and the third sentence names the result as 'composite function'. They increase (mildly) in technicality. They usually do it that way in Wikipedia. It is a deliberate choice. Your new version of the first sentence is now defining the noun. If it shall stay that way, the following sentences must be adjusted accordingly. Cactus0192837465 (talk) 22:41, 17 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

Well, but all of them should be correct and comprehencible anyway, maybe some less precise than the others. My first sentence does not use any technical notation or language, not even domain and range specification, but anything would be fine with me, as long as it is correct (and comprehensible). The previous version "function composition is the application of one function to the result of another to produce a third function is not comprehensible even for a mathematician (assuming he does not know already what is being defined). The result at what point? If the first function is from reals to reals, its application can only produce a real, not another function, etc. I do not see a point to not define something directly in the first sentence if you easily can. --Alexey Muranov (talk) 04:21, 18 January 2019 (UTC)Reply
How about something along the lines of: "function composition is an operation that takes two functions and produces a new one by connecting the input of one to the output of the other"? --Alexey Muranov (talk) 04:33, 18 January 2019 (UTC)Reply
I mentioned informal as a description of the style in which it was written before. Style which my edit tried to keep. I am not implying that it strictly has to be that way. What is awkward now is the repetition occurring between the first and second sentence. They are saying the same thing. So, one of them is unnecessary. Cactus0192837465 (talk) 15:29, 18 January 2019 (UTC)Reply
Personally, I see no reason to write a paragraph where one sentence would suffice, so shrinking the whole introduction into a one-sentence informal (by mathematical standards) definition would look the most natural to me. However, I am afraid that the others won't agree. Anyway, what i care the most about is that the information be correct and comprehensible, whether the style is formal or informal, and whether there is any redundancy or not. Currently, I would prefer to leave it to the others to decide how to deal with it (as long as any misleading or inaccurate statements are avoided).
What can be said in defence of the current situation, is that the second sentence is more detailed and formal than the first one, and it uses the technical notation for function's domain and codomain. --Alexey Muranov (talk) 15:50, 18 January 2019 (UTC)Reply

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