User talk:EmilJ/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Thanks for the tip

And for cleaning up the hyphens, dashes, and minus signs in the quadratic residue article (I'd swear that somewhere I read that – was proper for formulas; I didn't even realize that − existed)

I can see the difference between – and − by juxtaposing them; –− the minus is raised a pixel or so higher. Subtle.

Thanks again.

Virginia-American (talk) 17:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Probability of Solovary-Strassen primality test

The probability of the Solovay-Strassen primality test can be more specifically limited than 1/2. I will find the reference in the textbook that a math teacher of mine owns. Meanwhile, I have my own version (the math teacher made me re-calculate everything). It involves the use of Bayes' rule.

"To derive the probability of failure of the Solovay-Strassen Primality test, Bayes' rule is used. In this problem, event A will be the probability that n survives m number of trials and event B will be the probability that n is composite. So, the probability that a number n is composite given that it survives m number of trials is what we are looking for. P(A|B) (the probability that a composite number n survives m number of trials) is less than or equal to 2^{-m} because at most half of the numbers can be liars. P(A) is expanded and found below. P(B) is the probability of choosing a composite number. The probability of choosing a prime number is about ${\frac {1}{lnn}}\$$ however, to increase our chances, we will discard the obviously non-prime, a.k.a. \textbf{even} numbers, doubling our chance to $P(\neg B)={\dfrac {2}{lnn}}$ Thus the probability of choosing a composite number is $P(B)=1-{\dfrac {2}{lnn}}$ $P(A|\neg B)=1$ since if n is prime the number of trials it can survive is infinite.

$P(B|A)={\frac {P(A|B)P(B)}{P(A|B)P(B)+P(A|\neg B)P(\neg B)}}$

$\leq {\frac {2^{-m}(1-{\frac {2}{lnn}})}{2^{-m}(1-{\frac {2}{lnn}})+{\frac {2}{lnn}}}}$

$={\frac {1-{\frac {2}{lnn}}}{1-{\frac {2}{lnn}}+{\frac {2^{m+1}}{lnn}}}}$

$={\frac {lnn-2}{lnn-2+2^{m+1}}}$

So

$P(B|A)\leq {\frac {lnn-2}{lnn-2+2^{m+1}}}$

Does my probability still seem dubious?

--Heero Kirashami (talk) 22:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You are seriously confused about what a probabilistic algorithm is, and how is its probability of failure defined. The statement "the probability of failure of the algorithm A is at most p" means "for every input n, the probability (over its internal coin tosses) that A fails to give the correct answer on input n is at most p". It does not involve any probability distribution on the inputs in any way. (One of the reasons being to rule out trivial "algorithms" like ignore the input and return "composite", which according to your definition correctly computes primality with the negligible error of 1/ln n.) So, while your computation might be correct (I did not check it), it is totally misguided, the number computed has nothing to do with the error probability of the algorithm.

Furthermore, the bound ${\dfrac {ln(n)-2}{ln(n)-2+2^{m+1}}}$ as you inserted in the article uses a mysterious parameter m which does not appear anywhere in the article, and the bound is actually worse than the usual 1/2 (or 2^-m with more trials and your notation) bound, as assymptotically ${\frac {\ln n-2}{\ln n-2+2^{m+1}}}\to 1$ for $n\to \infty$. For future, note also the correct formating of $\ln$ in TeX. — EJ (talk) 11:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

However, note that the original calculations of an author much smarter and less confused than an eighth grader were correct. And he actually knew how to define the actual terms. I'm still somewhat confused about the terms, but I know how to do the calculations. If I can reference the book, then I will place it in the article. --Heero Kirashami (talk) 22:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

You see, the problem is not so much with the computation, but with your interpretation of the result. What you thus need to check is not the name of the book, but the actual formulation of the statement, and its meaning in the context. Given your own admission of being "somewhat confused about the terms", I will not hesitate to revert any addition which is at odds with standard and well-known facts abut the algorithm. — EJ (talk) 11:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

However, I have read through it carefully and so I have found the source. If you would like to check it, fine. However, even additions that are "at odds with standard and well-known facts ab[o]ut the algorithm." may be correct. As Cryptography: Theory and Practice, by Douglas R. Stinson, states, (I'm quoting this directly but re-phrasing will be necessary for the article) "If we have run the algorithm m times, what is our confidence that n is prime? It is tempting to conclude that the probability that such an integer n is prime is $1-2^{-m}$. This conclusion is often stated in both textbooks and technical articles, but it cannot be inferred from the given data." Thus, I do believe it contradicts commonly referenced facts about the distribution. However, just because everyone else assumed the world was flat didn't mean it actually was.

Thus, the computation is correct (and, given that m will be defined as the number of trials, completely sensible; further, it is not n, but m which is going to infinity, so it is still approaching zero, and further it does matter whether $2^{-m}$ is better, it matters which one is correct); however, his formulation of the statement was essentially the same as mine. Thus, I think that my result is correct. I am willing to reformat it so it matches with the article. However, I will wait for your "approval." If you need proof, then go find a copy of Cryptography: Theory and Practice, Second Edition, by Douglas R. Stinson, (If you go to Books_on_cryptography you can find its ISBN, but you can probably find a friend or someone with it, or try a library), and go to page 178 (Or "The RSA Cryptosystem and Factoring Integers"). --Heero Kirashami (talk) 00:01, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Probabilistic algorithms and their probability of error are mathematical objects with an exact definition, which you can find in any standard textbook on computational complexity (e.g., Papadimitriou). It has nothing to do with anybody's confidence in anything. Confidence is a subject of psychology, not computer science. It is a proved mathematical fact that the probability of failure of the Solovay–Strassen algorithm is at most $\varphi (n)/2n$ for every n. It is likewise a hard mathematical fact that this bound is optimal, there are many inputs n which attain the bound: 1729, 2465, 15841, ... (in general, any Carmichael number n such that 2(p − 1) | n − 1 for every prime divisor p of n). You cannot argue with it any more than you can argue with 1 + 1 = 2, so what you say about flat world is just babbling nonsense. Finally, it makes no sense to say that "it is not n, but m which is going to infinity". In theory, it is customary to compare randomized algorithms using just one round (i.e., m = 1). In practical applications, both parameters are of course bounded, but m behaves as a constant much more than n does (m is usually a small number like 5 to 10, whereas n has hundreds of bits).

Your derivation above makes it clear that you are not computing a bound on the failure probability of the algorithm, but the conditional probability of pronouncing prime a uniformly randomly chosen composite integer in [1, n]. Actually, that's still not quite correct, as you introduced for no good reason another complication by excluding even numbers. (Why? Why not exclude also multiples of 3? Or 5? etc?) So, the actual description is that it is supposed to be a bound on the probability of pronouncing prime a uniformly randomly chosen odd composite integer in [1, n].

Should it be mentioned in the article? No, I say. Neither the fact that it appeared as an example in some book, nor the fact that you were able to recompute it yourself, make it notable for inclusion in an encyclopedia. For one thing, there is no explanation why anyone should be interested in a parameter with such a ridiculously complicated description. Much more importantly, the appearance of the bound in the article would suggest the impression that it is a realistic estimate, which is completely false. The actual probability is much, much smaller. This is due to the fact that the number is equal to ${\frac {1}{1+2/(p\ln n)}}$, where p is not the usual (maximal) probability of error of the algorithm, but the average probability of error taken over uniformly random (odd) integers in [1,n]. This p is significantly smaller than 1/2. For a trivial bound, it is less that $3/\pi ^{2}\approx 0.304$ (for m = 1), because $\varphi (n)/n$ is $6/\pi ^{2}$ on average (see totient#Growth of the function, or any textbook on number theory). For a stronger bound, Damgård, Landrock, and Pomerance give several bounds (e.g., $p<(\log n)^{3/2}{\frac {2^{m}}{\sqrt {m}}}4^{2-{\sqrt {m\log n}}}$ for m = O(log n), $p<{\tfrac {1}{7}}(\log n)^{15/4}2^{-(\log n)/2-2m}$ for larger m) on the average probability of error of the closely related Miller–Rabin algorithm (see that article for an exact reference). (The point to observe in the somewhat complicated expression is that the bound is exponentially small not only in m, but also in log n.) I am not aware of such a bound being published for Solovay–Strassen (presumably because nobody gives a damn about the Solovay–Strassen algorithm any more, as Miller–Rabin is better in all respects), but the similarity of the two algorithms and their analysis strongly suggests that a bound of similar growth rate should hold for Solovay–Strassen as well.

So, apart from your bound being hardly useful, it is also highly misleading, as it is badly suboptimal. I thus cannot agree with putting it in the article. If you want to make yourself useful, you can search a library to find out whether there isn't a published paper extending the Damgård, Landrock, and Pomerance results to Solovay–Strassen after all (though it does not look very promising), instead of keeping pushing your bound. — EJ (talk) 10:45, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Found it myself, it's actually in one of the reference of the DLP paper: Erdős and Pomerance show that the average probability of error of Solovay–Strassen (and even Fermat) is $\exp(-(1+o(1))\log n\,\log \log \log n/\log \log n)$ (for m = 1). I'll put it in the article. — EJ (talk) 13:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as we have reached an agreement, you should put it in as I am still partly confused, and you can probably write it a lot better than I can. And it's definitely true, too, that no one gives a damn about Solovay-Strassen because Miller-Rabin is so much faster, with an equal or better probability of...working (that's the best I can say). And even though I have no idea what the heck your number is, I don't disagree because it's probably for the general case (I think) instead of just for odds and also I am not too good with algebraic manipulation when there's so many logs. It's great that we've both grown as mathematicians, then! Thanks! For me, it would probably take...15,000 years to look through papers! --Heero Kirashami (talk) 06:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

global account

I'm making an usurpation request for the account EmilJ on da. — Emil J (talk) 10:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

...

sorry, i was just hoping someone more relevant with the IPA would make the IPA more accurate.CuteHappyBrute (talk) 06:17, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Your Comment

"Serbia recalled ambassadors for consultations from states recognizing Kosovo. This diplomatic procedure is by definition a temporary measure, all the ambassadors will be back sooner or later. 100 days is actually quite a lot."

How is the diplomatic procedure a "temporary measure"? What "definition" are you refeering to? How is 100 days "quite a lot"? I await your reply, sir. Ari 0384 (talk) 20:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Why did you move the discussion here from the original talk page? It has nothing to do with me personally. Anyway, an envoy recalled for consultation comes to his/her home country, where he consults with foreign ministry officials who advise him on the latest developement of the country's official foreign policy, and then he returns back. That's what the phrase means, I can't help you if you don't know that. Of course, these days ambassadors can be easily advised by phone or email, so the supposed "consultation" is usually only an excuse for recalling the ambassador to his home country as a means of diplomatic pressure weaker than full severing of diplomatic ties, but this does not change the basic principle that such a recall is temporary. — Emil J. (formerly EJ) 09:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Heyting algebra

I have seen your change. But then, what about the sentence "Arend Heyting (1898-1980) was himself interested in clarifying the foundational status of intuitionistic logic, when he introduced this type of structure." (my boldface)? --Tillmo (talk) 17:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, Heyting did not introduce Heyting algebras. They are only named after him, or rather after the Heyting calculus (=intuitionistic logic). — Emil J. (formerly EJ) 09:25, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

re: Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context

My apologies. I had not noticed that the sub-bullets were moved down into a footnote now. You are correct that since the move, the sub-bulleting no longer applies. Rossami (talk) 14:25, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

No need to apologize. The page source looks confusing in this place. — Emil J. (formerly EJ) 14:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

functional completeness

Dear EmilJ,

Forgive me for reverting your recent edits to functional completeness.

I hope the discussion on the talk page helps you understand why I would do such a crazy thing. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 05:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

LaTeX logos

Given that the logos themselves are defined by code, why is it better to use images to represent them rather than have them constructed? Inline images are a bad idea for a number of reasons. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

The template expands to a <math> expression which ends up being rendered as an image, so it is as bad as using an image directly. You know, our manual of style even explicitly tells you that inline <math> expressions are a bad idea for a number of reasons.

Now, in principle, it would be fine to have the logo constructed, but only if it is constructed exactly according to the specs. What the template does, however, is a crude approximation of the original shifts by various combinations of \!, subscripts, and such stuff. This is essentially dubious OR, and the result is very distorted. The "E" is too low, it does not touch either the "T" serif or bottom of the "X" as it should. The "E" is also too close to the "T". The upper tip of the "A" is not on the same level as the other letters, and so on. It is simply unacceptable to change a logo arbitrarily in such a way. There are basicly only two ways of constructing the logo: either <math>\hbox{\LaTeX}</math>, or to expand its definition giving

<math>\hbox{L\kern-.36em\sbox0 T\vbox to\ht0{\hbox{\scriptsize A}\vss}\kern-.15emT\kern-.1667em\lower.5ex\hbox{E}\kern-.125emX}</math>

(I've omitted some NFSS cruft). Alas, neither is accepted by texvc. — Emil J. 12:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

trivia :)

Hi Emil. Concerning unliking dates: "To avoid disruption, however, this deprecation should not be taken as license for wholesale removal of existing links from articles currently employing them extensively. Such removal from a given article should follow a consensus to do so among the editors of that page." ([1]). For us in the Kosovo recognition article, mentioning what you are doing on the talk page in order to get us to use consistent dates might be a good idea. Best wishes, --Mareklug ^talk 22:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

If you look closely, you will realize that the Kosovo recognition article does not extensively use linked dates, the reason being they were already deleted a month or so ago by a bot. I only removed a couple of new links which were inserted afterwards. — Emil J. 14:47, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo map and CSS

Shoot, that makes thing a lot easier. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 23:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I can't make heads or tails of your message. What do you mean by shoot? Is it some kind of a joke? — Emil J. 10:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

First-order logic

Before you do any more work on the article, just a quick reminder that this article is read (and edited) a lot by philosophers. I think they tend to have serious problems with trivial special cases of definitions, and that's why I havent done this earlier and even think it's a bad idea. It's not even the most typical way things are presented in mathematical books on the subject. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it simplifies the definitions and usage by cutting down the number of cases, which should make the material easier to understand and learn, and avoid false impression of qualitative distinctions where there are none. It is thus an improvement benefiting the readers of the article. I see no reason to preemptively impede it because philosophers might not like it, not until they actually complain. — Emil J. 11:19, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with you about the substance. I am sure some mathematical text must have done it right (i.e. in this way), but at the moment I am only aware of more conservative texts, that all got it wrong. Do you know a source that we can cite?

One more real problem (in the sense that it's not just about different words but about slightly different mathematics) is, unfortunately, the question of 0-place predicates. I think most authors don't allow them – for reasons similar to those for not allowing an empty domain. As a result, for most authors propositional logic is not a proper subset of first-order logic. While I personally think that's plain wrong, we shouldn't mislead our readers by claiming otherwise. (If I am right.)

I would like to share your optimism that this edit is going to stick, but I have been surprised by very strange disputes in this area in the past that have made me very cautious when editing this article. This is one of the reasons I haven't worked much on it yet, although it is still in extremely bad shape. So, while I am happy with your changes (I haven't examined them in detail, for lack of time), I am just slightly concerned that they might get us into time-wasting fights with non-mathematicians, and I am a bit reluctant to build on them now before I know they will survive. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It's been ages since the last time I looked for a book covering these basic things, so I can't give you a source out of my head.

I don't understand what's the problem with 0-ary predicates. What do they have to do with empty domains? I'm simply puzzled. As far as I can see, empty domains are disallowed because they change the logic in many unfortunate ways, invalidating such basic axioms as $\forall x\,\varphi \to \varphi$ (cf. free logic). No such thing happens with propositional variables: first-order logic with 0-ary predicates is a conservative extension of both propositional logic and first-order logic without 0-ary predicates, and all valid schemas of the latter continue to hold, one may simply ignore 0-ary predicates when one does not need them. Anyway, the article treated the question inconsistently, some parts assumed that propositional variables can be used, some (most) assumed that they can't. I've effectively unified it to the former convention, because it is nicer to allow more generality when it does not cost any additional effort, and it is inelegant to introduce arbitrary restrictions. However, I do not see it as an important point, as the need for propositional variables nearly never occurs in practice in first-order logic.

As for your concerns, I think it is reasonably safe to expect (per WP:Integrate changes) that anybody who wanted to switch back to treating constants separately would take care of adjusting other parts of the article that may depend on this choice, so you should not hesitate to build on the article as it is. Anyway, I'm not willing to waste time fighting over the choice, if there arises significant opposition to it let them have it their way. Incidentally, thanks for your efforts to bring the article into a better shape. — Emil J. 13:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for yours :-). I don't remember what the issues with nullary predicates are, but it seems they were discarded by many since the slightly more general kind of logic that Gödel worked with. Possibly some results in proof theory that don't hold when you have them? I guess that the constants T and F for truth values are normally missing for the same reason, whatever it is. It's a pity that there seems to be no text that really explains its choices. I think Wikipedia has already started to play an important role for uniformisation of mathematical terminology, because here is where all the different conventions clash rather violently. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Oops

Sorry about that, I won't do it again. I am dyslexic, so I'm not the best speller. But thanks anyway. Regards Ijanderson (talk) 13:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Politeness

Please assume good faith in your dealings with other editors, which you did not do with User:Rjwilmsi at User talk:Rjwilmsi#Kosovo. Assume that others are here to improve rather than harm Wikipedia. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 02:56, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I did not and do not question Rjwilmsi's good faith in any way whatsoever, only the erroneous results of some of his careless edits. "Assume good faith" does not mean that I cannot point out other people's mistakes, if there is a danger that they might continue. — Emil J. 12:58, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

rm links

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, please do not remove citations or information sourced through citations simply because a link to a source is not working. Dead links should not be deleted. Instead, please repair or replace the link, if possible, and ensure properly sourced information is retained. Often, a live substitute link can be found. Links not used as references, notes or citations are not as important, such as those listed in the "External links" or "Further reading" sections, but bad links in those sections should also be fixed if possible. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. --Avala (talk) 12:56, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I have asked User Nightstallion if it is possible to fix the link or copy/paste the contents but a dead link is by no means a reason to erase information or add fact template.--Avala (talk) 12:56, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

It is not just a dead link, it is a "link" which never worked. In other words, a bogus source. Thus, the section is uncourced, and the tag is entirely appropriate. — Emil J. 12:59, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh so it's definitive then - it was never accessed because...you said so? The link was accessed by user Nightstallion and the reason why we can't access it is the problem with the UN ODS, any link from the UN ODS is dead when linked directly.--Avala (talk) 13:36, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

As you say, we can't access the link, and that's what matters. The reason why we can't access it is irrelevant. The link does not, did not, and will not work by design, therefore it's not a verifiable source. A dead link is one which worked, but stopped because it was moved, or because of network problems. That's not the case here.

You see, I could just claim that Serbia recognized Kosovo, look, here's a source: [2]. Oh, it does not work, but that's fine, it's just a dead link. Don't delete it. — Emil J. 13:47, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Why do you repeat yourself without reading what I wrote? I am afraid I have to resort to POINT behaviour to force you to read it because I don't see any other way - the link worked, the link worked, the link worked, the link worked, the link worked, the link worked. Nighstallion added it so it obviously worked, Nighstallion added it so it obviously worked, Nighstallion added it so it obviously worked. UN documentation system doesn't work with direct linking with any document not just this one, UN documentation system doesn't work with direct linking with any document not just this one, UN documentation system doesn't work with direct linking with any document not just this one. Do you get these three points now?--Avala (talk) 15:07, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Why do you repeat yourself without reading what I wrote? The link only ever worked for Nightstallion. Nightstallion is not any kind of magic Wikipedia person who decides what links are valid and what are not. The whole point of references is that they should be in principle independently verifiable BY ANY READER OF THE ARTICLE, not just the single person who added the reference, otherwise anyone can claim anything. Obviously, the link by itself did not work for anybody, Nightstallion must have gotten there by a series of other steps which are not preserved in the link. The link by itself, without further information allowing its content to be accessed, is not a verifiable source. — Emil J. 15:18, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Right, so those who made an official template warning to be given to those who remove dead links didn't know what they were doing?!--Avala (talk) 15:21, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I am waiting to see what are you going to come up with now that I have added a completely working link - [3] --Avala (talk) 15:19, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Good, you seem to have finally got it, and did your job properly instead of pushing a broken link. Next time, could you just do it straight away? — Emil J. 15:28, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

We were lucky that there was a different working link. But if there wasn't, you had no right to remove the dead link. That is why there is a warning template for those who do it. Instead add a dead link template not fact template.--Avala (talk) 15:33, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. The existence of a template unfortunately does not guard against you misunderstanding and misusing it. You simply cannot pull a non-working link out of thin air, mark it as dead, and pretend that it is a reliable source. It isn't. The dead link template, once again, is for links (not just references) which worked for some period of time, but due to the changing nature of the web, stopped working (and there is a reasonable expectation that the linked content exists somewhere else). — Emil J. 15:44, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I thought that you would learn from the new source that there was nothing unreliable or false about the previous one. The previous one wasn't even dead technically speaking, the content was only unavailable on direct click due to UN website glitch so adding the dead link template was my attempt to satisfy your greed for removal. Removing a perfectly normal reference which unfortunately had technical issues was a big problem and adding the fact template was even bigger because you were perfectly aware of the UN website issues but you tried to present it as some false link equal to giving a vjdnfjvk.rs link for Serbian recognition of Kosovo.--Avala (talk) 15:57, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

You didn't answer any of my objections to your misusing of the templates. The fact that a site has "technical issues" does not in any way give an excuse why should I or anybody else accept your word on what is it supposed to contain, especially since it was obvious that you were also unable to access it. The link was not working just because of "technical issues", it was never intended to work by its designer, and the reference consisting of just the link was therefore bogus. Claims not adequately supported by verifiable reliable sources should be deleted or at least tagged with the fact template, I gave you the benefit of doubt and did the latter. The fact that there turned out to be a different source confirming the story does not in any way make the original broken reference acceptable. — Emil J. 16:16, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

You are again missing the point. Broken links are not to be removed with {{fact}}, they are either to be substituted if possible or tagged with {{dead link}} or deactivated through plain text.--Avala (talk) 16:37, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

No, you are missing the point. You introduced a "reference" consisting of a bare link leading nowhere. That's not a reference with a broken link, that's simply a bogus reference. It is indistinguishable from the nonsense example I gave above, and as such it directly violates one of the basic Wikipedia policies, WP:verifiability. Since you are apparently unable to read and understand it yourself, here are some of the relevant excerpts: The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. The source cited must clearly support the information as it is presented in the article. The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question. Also: Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but editors may object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider tagging a sentence by adding the {{fact}} template. Now show me a policy which has the power to overrule WP:V, and which states that you can introduce any bogus links as you like as a reference provided they are marked with {{dead link}}. — Emil J. 09:52, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

What does "If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, consider tagging a sentence by adding the {{fact}} template." have to do with the situation we had here? The content was sourced already, there was a reference which only had technical issues. Obviously you are trying to squeeze this policy in a wrong spot, but it actually refers to situations when no source is provided, not when the link is not working. I suggest that you read WP:DEADREF to find out what to do in the situation when the link doesn't work (hint - it's not adding the fact template nor removing the content).--Avala (talk) 12:40, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

You are just repeating over and over your absurd interpretation of a bogus source as a "dead link". This discussion does not move anywhere, I am not going to participate in it any longer. — Emil J. 17:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

That is the problem, that link was NOT bogus (Counterfeit or fake; not genuine), it only had technical issues.--Avala (talk) 20:00, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Avala, you are beating a dead horse. "Technical issues" is when a server is temporarily down, not when a URL doesn't contain the full information needed to access a page. And a fact tag does not imply that someone doesn't believe a statement. It is primarily a tool to help us collaborate to find a source (or remove the statement if that fails). --Hans Adler (talk) 09:35, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The link was full but the website of the UN doesn't work with later direct linking, so it was a technical issue. And there is no reason ot use fact template when there is a perfectly normal template called "dead link" which is supposed to be used in situations like this.--Avala (talk) 12:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

3RRR violation report from WP:CONTEXT

Hi, you may be interested in this report of the violation by User:Londo06 here. Cheers Tony (talk) 11:23, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Template Substitution

Hi there. When you add a user warning template to a user’s page please remember to substitute it. If wish to reply to this message please use my talk page and if you need help feel free to talk to me there or you may find Wikipedia:SUB helpful. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 16:12, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Damn. How did I forget to do that? — Emil J. 16:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Terracini

Thanks, EmilJ (hmmmmm.... are we perhaps distant relatives?), for your swift and helpful response on this. I must admit, though, that it was grudging at first glance when I realized I'd have to tough it out and look up my rusty IPA. As it turns out, the Hebrew transliteration I was provided is correct, and to my delight, the IPA symbol for that third-syllable consonant is just like the Yiddish letter pair representing that sound! -- Cheers, Deborahjay (talk) 14:34, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. — Emil J. 15:42, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Request for comments

Hi there,

Is a bit long, but can you comment at Template_talk:Euro_adoption_future#I_propose_to_change_the_name_and_the_structure? It will be very much appreciated.

Thanks, Miguel.mateo (talk) 15:34, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

International reaction to the 2008 declaration of independence by Kosovo

Emil, i am sooory! Yes, this is the same article!! I am a ...

He, he, he...

Tadija (talk) 14:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Raven

Dobrý den. Z čeho soudíte, že to není havran ale krkavec. Ve slovníku je u hesla raven napsáno krkavec, havran, tedy oboje? Díky za odpověď. Chalupa z české wikipedie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.222.130.1 (talk) 14:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

To je všeobecně známo. Nevím, jaký používáte slovník, ale stačí si porovnat příslušná hesla ve Wikipedii: Common Raven je Corvus corax, tedy krkavec velký, kdežto havran polní je Corvus frugilegus, tedy Rook. To je ostatně vidět i z interwiki na těchto stránkách. (Všimněte si také, že Poeova báseň je na konci článku Common Raven explicitně zmíněna.) Další možnost je Wiktionary: raven, rook, nebo chcete-li krkavec, havran. Jak se lze dále dočíst v článku raven, toto slovo se kromě zmíněného krkavce velkého objevuje ještě v názvech několika dalších ptáků z rodu Corvus, kteří se v Evropě nevyskytují: Corvus crassirostris = krkavec tlustozobý, Corvus ruficollis = krkavec hnědokrký, Corvus cryptoleucus = krkavec americký, Corvus coronoides = krkavec australský, tedy opět žádní havrani. — Emil J. 15:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Zde je pro srovnání celý rod Corvus: anglicky, česky. Je tam ještě několik dalších ravenů, ale všichni se česky jmenují krkavec. — Emil J. 16:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Andrew N. Robertson

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Andrew N. Robertson, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process because of the following concern:

Actor has not had significant roles in multiple notable films. He does not have a signifcantly large following, nor has he had unique controbutions to entertainment. Thus he fails WP:ENTERTAINER.

All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because, even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. -- Darth Mike  (join the dark side) 14:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Whatever, I don't care. I just tried to disambiguate info on two different people mixed up in Andrew Robertson. — Emil J. 14:15, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Andrew N. Robertson

I have nominated Andrew N. Robertson, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew N. Robertson. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. -- Darth Mike  (join the dark side) 03:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Stop inserting your lunatic pseudoscience

it is not ok to use such a language EmilJ. What I did was to help people to understand i easier since it is confusing to use sqrt(-1) as in 'proper use' section of the article. this is neither pseudoscience nor lunatic. i is a definition and one can define things different than other people, this is not pseudoscience but just a different idea. you may not open to different ideas but that doesn't allow you call other people as 'lunatic'. we are trying to share information as well as ideas here

by the way, I talked to Quaeler and settled the issue.. (Ati7 (talk) 13:18, 17 February 2009 (UTC))

You most definitely did not help people to understand i easier, you rather inserted there two sentences mixing up various unrelated concepts in a way which did not make the slightest bit of sense. Minus sign is not any "property of a number", it is an operator taking one number to another. i is not a property of any number either (property of which number, I wonder?), nor is it an operator. It is a number itself. Saying "it is not a scalar entity" again makes no sense, as a scalar is a member of the base field of a linear space, and we are not talking about any linear spaces. (And if you take a linear space over the complex numbers, it has i as a scalar.) Your statement "'i' is an unit, not a value" is likewise absurd, as a unit is by definition a number whose norm (i.e., absolute value) is 1, thus any unit is automatically also a number (if number is what you mean by "value", otherwise it's meaningless). Sorry, but in my book, gibberish combining random mathematical terms in nonsensical sentences is pseudoscience. The reason why "square root of minus one" may be confusing has nothing to with any scalars, units, or whatnot, it is simply a consequence of the fact that square root is not a univalued function. — Emil J. 13:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

minus sign has three different usage as you can see in Plus_sign and as you said, first usage is subtraction. however, second usage is not substraction, not operator as well. it tells you that it is a negative number. and being negative is not about scalarity or magnitude. without minus sign, the number still has magnitude. that's why I used 'property', to mention that i should be more like as a symbol, not a value.

if you take i as sqrt(-1), then yes i is a scalar in a linear space over the complex numbers. what I am saying is that minus itself is not a number but -1 is a number. similarly, i itself shouldn't be a number, whereas i1 is a number. and again similarly, meter is not a value but a unit, whereas 1mt has a value

again, I am not talking about the reason for confusion about "square root of minus one". what I am saying is that if you define i as a value, you will have trouble as happened in that false proof of 1 = -1. anyway, thanks for sharing info. apparently, we don't understand each other and talk something else:) (Ati7 (talk) 14:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC))

Wikifying math-subjects

I'm sorry I hadn't noticed the wiki places a real apostrophe. It was maybe careless, but certainly not intentional. Would it be an option to replace '''x'''<b>z</b> + '''y'''<b>z</b> with '''xz''' + '''yz''' in order to maintain the same outcome, namely xy + yz, and using wiki-syntax instead of HTML? Dr. Breznjev (talk) 17:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, the outcome looks the same, so I suppose it is OK. Whoever created the original formatting presumably did it for semantical reasons (it's not a single bold-face string "xy", but a variable "x" multiplied by another variable "y"), but I think that's not important enough to worry about. — Emil J. 17:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Reference Desk Regulars

Thank you for all your contributions to the Wikipedia Reference Desk! In recognition of your work I have added your name to the list of Reference Desk Regulars. If you would prefer not to be listed, please let me know or simply remove your signature. Thanks again, and happy editing! – 74  09:57, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Logical connective

I found your formulations of the properties to be much better. I am still wondering if there isn't something more to absorption, because it looks just the same as "dual". That one had been without a description for a while. Be well, Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 16:08, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Taken off Talk:Ω-consistent theory

You wrote:

I am happy that you are happy. Yes, superscripts, subscripts, different fonts, etc. are all sensible possibilities for notation of sorts. However, the trouble is that none of them is quite standard, so whatever usage you choose would require an explanatory note.

As for the default sort: the choice obviously depends on the theory. It is natural for the natural numbers to be the default sort in a theory of arithmetic, but not in other theories. For instance, in set theories or class theories the natural default sort is the sort of sets. And since you seem to be interested in subsystems of second-order arithmetic and their proof theory, note that set theory does not just mean ZFC, it applies equally well to Kripke–Platek and its extensions. — Emil J. 12:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I guess the point about notation means that many-sorted logic is useful to Wikipedia only for rather niche articles. I'd say that subscripts is most widely used, I think due to a preference in theorem proving, but it has the problem with not indicating the sort of free variables.

Default sort: I should have put a smiley after my remark, which was based on punning natural as in number with the natural sort of choice. Quantification over real numbers I guess is more common than quantification over the naturals.

Kripke-Platek set theory: yes, that was the thought that led me to think of subsystems of second-order arithmetic.

I don't suppose there is much more worth saying on these topics, so I'll just say hi to one of the small band of Wikipedians who has published on the calculus of structures. — Charles Stewart (talk) 14:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, hi. I don't think that there's much more to be said on this topic either. — Emil J. 16:09, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Messing with references

The bot is randomly changing the order of references without any adequate reason, see e.g. [4]. — Emil J. 10:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can see (in the first 10 minutes) in this edit they are re-arranged into numerical order, which is part of WP:AWB general fixes. Rich Farmbrough 12:04 27 March 2009 (UTC).

TeX link in Greek

Thanks for fixing he [el:Tex] link. I gave up fixing it as the bot just adds it back to the subpage. Will this stop it?

SimonTrew (talk) 14:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I do not know the logic used by the bot, but I guess that it adds interwikis to articles which link back to the article in question, so let us hope that it will eventually realize that el:TeX/Προσωρινό was deleted and the correct name is el:TeX. — Emil J. 14:55, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Current events

Please keep a civil tone and assume good faith. It is not another editors responsibility to correct your errors and your tone does nothing to help the project. Tomdobb (talk) 16:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? It is you who failed to assume good faith. I mentioned a well-publicized event widely reported in media, as well as in our pages like NATO, Members of NATO, etc. If you felt it needed a source, you should fix it by adding one (it takes about a 5 seconds with Google news), not revert it. — Emil J. 17:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

The guidelines for current events state all news items should be sourced. If an event is well-publicized, then you should have a source ready when you add it. Other editors can't be held responsible for your errors. Please follow the guidelines to avoid issues in the future. Tomdobb (talk) 17:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and filed a Wikiquette alert about this. Tomdobb (talk) 17:19, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Be my guest. If you do not have anything better to do than bullying other editors, that's only your problem. — Emil J. 17:23, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

So you broke a rule, you were politely informed of it, and instead of simply fixing the problem you responded with an insult. Looking at this page, I see that you have been making a habit of interacting antagonistically with other editors. That's a bad path to go down if you want to accomplish anything here. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 18:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Interpretability

You're quite right, thanks for fixing that. BrideOfKripkenstein (talk) 15:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Janos Komlos

At least you could have waited a few days. Kope (talk) 15:21, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Waited for what? Naming an article with a parenthetical disambiguation when the base name does not exist is simply wrong. — Emil J. 15:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Sabotage!

There goes my cunning plan of getting the anon to at least understand and state the problem correctly ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:28, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that the anon is responsible for the insufficient statement of the problem. Anyway, the question is quite weird. I for one haven't got the slightest idea what circles and squares have to do with the two arctans, except that the results happen to be the same. — Emil J. 15:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Mapa v Seznam států a mezinárodních organizací podle postoje k nezávislosti Kosova

Asi jsem natvrdlý, ale proč jste vyměnil mapu? Resp. proč považujete Vámi dodanou mapu - informačně chudší a zdůrazňující pouze jednu z relevantních skupin států - za NPOV? Jann 15:30, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Ta mapa není informačně chudší, protože jediná dostupná informace o dané situaci založená na ověřitelných objektivních faktech je zda daný stát formálně uznává Kosovo či nikoliv. Ono rozdělení neuznávajících států do pěti nebo kolika skupin není informace, ale pustá spekulace, daná místní interpretací různých kusých zpráv v mediích, a je nutně věcí názoru a POV. Na cswiki jste si toho možná nevšiml, protože tam needituje mezinárodní komunita, ale na enwiki, odkud mapa File:Kosovo relations.png původně pochází, vedlo její použití k nekonečným debatám o tom jak a proč má ta která země být vybarvena a k revert wars (viz archívy Talk:International recognition of Kosovo), což mimo jiné vyústilo ve fork na dvě verze, File:Kosovo relations.png a File:Kosovo relations2.png. Na konec komunita dospěla k názoru, že jediný neutrální způsob, jak situaci vyřešit, je použít novou mapu která se striktně drží faktů, tj. File:CountriesRecognizingKosovo.png. (Podobné dvoubarevné mapy se mimochodem používají i pro jiná sporná teritoria, viz International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia a Foreign relations of the Republic of China#Relations and changes) Další nepřímý důsledek je, že ty šestibarevné mapy jsou od té doby v podstatě neudržované (přesněji řečeno, s výjimkou očividných updatů když nějaká nová země uzná Kosovo edituje Kosovo_relations.png pravidelně pouze uživatel Avala, který prosazuje silně prosrbský POV). Použití této mapy na české wiki je proto dost zavádějící. — Emil J. 17:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Functional completeness

Re your edit comment here – there was a good reason I didn't do this: I don't know where to look this up, and didn't have enough time to figure it out on my own and be sure it's correct. Unless I am doing something wrong, it's a straightforward but tedious exercise. Do you have a source, or an idea where to find one by any chance? In any case thanks for doing this. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:39, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I do not have any source, I checked it by hand while fixing the relevant section in the logical connective article. If that is your concern, I still do not understand why you think that sets of size at most 2 are OK, but not the larger ones: if anything, the whole list should go, since we have no source for the smaller sets either. Note that the list you pasted there was incorrect to begin with, three sets were missing. — Emil J. 09:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I think formally sets of size at most 2 are not OK, either. But as I hinted above, like you I felt the need to make the list complete and would have done my own original research if I had had the time; in my opinion uncontroversial original research for presentational reasons is a good thing. Concerning the incompleteness – I replaced a confusing table with 16 entries by a list with 15 entries, so I should really have noticed.

While looking up some things for this comment, I just realised that the Wernick reference in the article comes very close to what we need. His result (on the last page) needs only some little corrections to account for his slightly stronger notion of completeness. --Hans Adler (talk) 10:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks for looking it up. — Emil J. 11:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Treaty of Lisbon

Thank you for the improvements you made in the section about Czech Republic, but I am afraid you deleted all what came after it (for example, now there is nothing about Germany, which until yesterday was there). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.217.131.237 (talk) 03:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about. Here's the diff of my edits:[5]. As you can see, I did not touch the German section at all. — Emil J. 09:44, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes now I see it again. I think that my iexplore version had a problem this morning, sorry for the mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.221.24.162 (talk) 10:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4