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pivoxa15
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Why not? Does topics on it go under general maths?
JasonRox said:I think Topology should have a heading somewhere. I never actually know where to post it. General Math? Calculus and Analyis? Or Linear and Abstract Algebra?
I was thinking that we should rename the headlines as...
General Math
Calculus and Differential Equations
Analysis and Topology
Linear and Abstract Algebra
...and so on...
Kummer said:Eventhough Topology and Analysis are similar I consider them seperate. I would put Topology under Geometry section.
Chris Hillman said:But as Kummer's comment shows, mathematics is far too varied and interconnected to succumb gracefully to any attempt to categorize its body parts.
Chris Hillman said:I [post=1491724]proposed[/post] the following reorganized roster of Math subforums
- Calculus and Miscellaneous
- Combinatorics, Graphs, and Number Theory
- Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems
- Linear and Modern Algebra
- Logic and Foundations
- Manifolds and Geometry
- Probability, Information Theory, and Statistics
- Topology and Analysis
The OPs query provides a good example of why it would be useful to have a conveniently found list of possible topics. In this case,
Thus, I'd say that questions about fractals could fit into "PIT&S" or "T&A", but a vague question about fractals might seem odd the proposed "DE&DS" forum, which would probably mostly contain questions about differential equations, not analysis. In any case, if my scheme were adopted, the question would most likely wind up in "C&M", which would work.
- fractal quantities arise in "chaotic dynamics" and in "holomorphic dynamics (Julia sets and all that--- dynamical systems meets analysis),
- quantities such as entropy arise in dynamics and IT as the Hausdorff dimension of a fractal set (e.g. the set of "plausible sequences" for a given Markov measure), and Hausdorff dimension is defined in terms of Hausdorff measure, which belongs to measure theory, which is part of modern analysis; plausible sequences involves a probability measure, which also is part of probability and information theory,
- quantities such as "correlation dimension" which arise in less rigorous parts of chaotic dynamics can be thought of as approximations to Hausdorff dimension of certain sets
pivoxa15 said:Weyl said the angel of topology and the devil of algebra fights for the heart and soul of every branch of mathematics. So topology must be big to say the least.
JasonRox said:Where do you get all these little fun facts?
Those seem good. I don't understand why the math forums lack the descriptions that you see, for instance, with forum headings in physics and engineering. If we did this, it would certainly help students decide which forum might be best to start with.matt grime said:If you were to force me to make a pie in the sky suggestion right away (and I should be something positive, I suppose), then here's a whacky idea, based upon a 'bigger picture' of mathematics:
1. Introductory mathematics (What currently passes for "analysis")
2. Algebraic Topology and Geometry
3. Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems
4. Measure Theory and Probability
5. Foundations of Mathematics (Logic, sets, categories)
6. Number Theory (if we must - this seems to be the least used forum, and the one with the highest crackpot hit rate).
Evo said:Those seem good. I don't understand why the math forums lack the descriptions that you see, for instance, with forum headings in physics and engineering. If we did this, it would certainly help students decide which forum might be best to start with.
matt grime said:Can we drop either the reference to graphs or to combinatorics. I have little idea why people consider graph theory not to be combinatorics.
matt grime said:And one can add in group theory. Thus Bullet Point 2 could become
"Combinatorics, Groups and Number theory" (purely alphabetical ordering)
These are what would be taught in an introductory course in 'finite mathematics'.
matt grime said:I would like to see 'linear and modern algebra' removed, as it is a nothing title - the word modern conveys nothing, and is arguably unrepresentative of truly modern algebra (a representation of a group is a functor from a category with one object and all maps isomorphism to Vect, anyone? Ok, that's perhaps not 'modern' but just 'obtuse'.
matt grime said:can we agree on who we should be aiming the descriptions at? Undergraduates, (post)graduate students, or mathematicians?
matt grime said:I see no good solution here other than Chris's.
jostpuur said:Suppose there's a question related to the functional analysis and operator theory. Should it go to topology and analysis, or into the linear algebra?
Chris Hillman said:
- Calculus and Miscellaneous
- Combinatorics, Graphs, and Number Theory
- Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems
- Linear and Modern Algebra
- Foundations (Logic, Sets, Categories)
- Manifolds and Geometry
- Measure Theory, Probability, Information Theory, Statistics
- Topology and Analysis
Chris Hillman said:Ow! Ow! I specifically said that the proposed titles do not represent an attempt to classify mathematics, but an attempt to help newbies figure out where to put their post.
That said, I could live with deleting "Graphs" from "Graphs, Combinatorics, and Number Theory" if its really that important to you. Ugliness and verbosity was also a factor which I balanced against clarity and correctness, but in the end in several cases trying to guide clue-deprived newbies was consistently my most heavily weighted criterion.
cristo said:I do agree with the point that "Graphs" should be dropped from the suggestion given by Chris for the forum titles. The main reason for this is the point that Moonbear mentions: if high school students see a forum with "graphs" in the title, they may not understand what the other words mean, or how they relate to maths, and post their questions about plotting functions in here.
Ooh, I like that idea. That would be really nice for the non-mathematicians just browsing around to get a better idea of what these strange words mean. And might inspire sufficient curiosity to pursue it further.Chris Hillman said:The full proposal would include deciding how to write blurbs or a sticky giving examples of topics (with links to dictionary definitions at Springer on-line dictionary, mathworld but NOT WP since WP is unstable and unreliable) which belong in each forum. For example, "Graph Theory" with a link to a clear on-line definition at a stable website (Mathworld?) would be a possible topic listed under "Combinatorics and Number Theory".
I think a lot of that actually is the result of people landing here through Google, or similar, searches. They land in one of the subforums and sign up and start posting before realizing there's much, much, much more here (that happened when I first showed up...I was just lurking reading physics discussions having no idea what anyone was arguing over, and it wasn't until some time later I discovered there was an "other sciences" section with biology, chemistry and social sciences threads, which were what got me to "de-lurk" as you put it).BTW, like others here I have noticed that a large fraction of posts are currently rather obviously misplaced, e.g. zillions of questions about books not in the Book Recommendation forum. I think the key is not so much getting newbies to read a sticky before they delurk but having a really easy-to-use guide we can point them towards, something carefully written to be helpful to genuinely clueless newbies.
Nope, it's pretty easy to move threads. With the current version of the forum software, it's even pretty easy to split up discussions and move only some of the posts in a thread to a new place...much easier than the old version we had. It's also pretty easy for us to send a "warning" that links to a particular post so we can inform someone their thread has been moved, where to, and give them a pointer to the guidelines (that's why I have the link to the guidelines in my signature...I don't have to keep typing it out when I send someone new a PM about where their thread moved).Question for mentors: is it awkward to move an entire thread containing several posts? If so, any technical innovations making this task easier would probably be very helpful. As we all agree, no matter how well-thought out our sticky and reorganization might be, there will always be those posters who just don't get it, so we want to minimize the trouble for mentors in dealing with their goofs.