User talk:Thewhyman

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Hello, Thewhyman, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Wizard191 (talk) 18:35, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

September 2011

Welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for reverting your recent experiment with the page Factorial. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. If you would like to experiment further, please use the sandbox instead. Thank you. Glenn L (talk) 05:44, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Regarding "Archimedes' circle constant"

I think it is unnecessary to tell the reader what π is. Professor Walter Lewin jokingly said in his popular physics lecture For the Love of Physics that "if you don't know what π is, you might as well leave [the lecture room] right now". Please consider these arguments before reverting it back:

1. You argued that "it's beautiful as it reminds people of the equation's link to ancient Mathematics". Well it needs no reminder of the fact that our modern mathematics are largely based on "ancient" mathematics, not just π. Think about algebra, the +, -, ×, ÷ operations, fractions, the Arabic numbers, the constant e, geometry (which forms intuition for the Einstein's equations), the concept of 0, etc. Since mathematics is the language of physics, then many physical equations have all these ancient connections too. The Einstein's equations alone used many of these ancient elements. To remind people of the link to ancient mathematics in a physics article like this is, frankly, totally irrelevant and beside the point.
2. If you actually care about reminding people of these things, then you are inconsistent; you did not remind people of every other aspect of mathematics that have even deeper ancient roots, in all other articles and every instance of π that appeared.
3. To actually remind people about the link to ancient mathematics, this is not the way to do it. Merely explaining the meaning of the symbol π does not remind people anything at all. And that article certainly does not need an additional section just to appreciate the "beauty" of this link, as it would be an original research and, again, completely irrelevant.
4. The meaning of π is so obvious that it needs not be restated in articles like this. Anyone who is sufficiently well-versed in mathematics will not learn anything new from a "reminder" like this. Please name at least 5 serious university-level science or maths textbooks that explicitly reminds the reader about π when it appeared and I will reconsider my viewpoint.
5. This is not a usual practice in Wikipedia either. In articles including, but not limited to, stokes' law, terminal velocity, simple harmonic motion, fourier series, trigonometric function, normal distribution, Coulomb's law, Planck constant, there is no explicit mentioning of the meaning of π at all. It just comes up naturally, everyone understands its meaning and links to ancient mathematics, and we have more serious maths to worry about.
6. If you think that the link to π deserves to be mentioned when introducing Einstein's equations because the equations are important and foundational, well I would argue that fourier series is as important as Einstein's equations because it had such an enormous impact on mathematics and physics, that it runs our modern civilisation and economy in a certain sense. Same for Coulomb's law, which as "fundamental" as Einstein's theory in the description of our universe. Yet, since everyone understands the links, for practical purposes there is no point in writing those reminders.
7. The only actual outcome of restating the meaning of the symbol "π" in every instance (not just in Wikipedia) is to increase clutter and redundancy. Try proving this wrong.
8. The name "Archimedes' circle constant" is non-standard in modern times and I've never seen anyone, any academic paper, any book that used or endorsed this name. It actually caused me about 2 seconds of "mental block" before I knew what that is when I was reading that article. I meant it when I said the name is strange. Mathematical terminology are about conventions. Ramanujan's earlier works were hard to be understood by the British because he had not used the conventional terminology and proof writing style when expressing his mathematical ideawritings.
9. The main article for π has done a better job at reminding us of the history of that constant and its connection with many fundamental physical equations.

To conclude, I am not trying to be anal about this. I certainly appreciate your effort to contribute to Wikipedia ;) Jwchong (talk) 16:16, 28 May 2013 (UTC)