User talk:Richard Pinch

Welcome!

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at CZ:Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list (do join!) and the blog. Please also join the workgroup mailing list(s) that concern your particular interests. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forums is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any constable for help, too. Me, for instance! Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! D. Matt Innis 17:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Some ideas for contributions

Hi Richard, welcome aboard CZ. Matt has already given you some hints as to how things work here in general, and I wish to add some more practical hints on what possibilities you have to contribute. For a start, I just took some of the keywords from the information you supplied upon registration, and display below the current state of related CZ articles (for icon documentation, see Template:Rpl/Doc):

•  Mathematics: The study of quantities, structures, their relations, and changes thereof. ^[e]
•  Number theory: The study of integers and relations between them. ^[e]
•  RSA: A widely used public key encryption algorithm whose strength depends on the difficulty of integer factorisation. ^[e]
•  Combinatorics: Branch of mathematics concerning itself, at the elementary level, with counting things. ^[e]
• Arithmetics: Add brief definition or description
•  Elliptic curve: An algebraic curve of genus one with a group structure; a one-dimensional abelian variety. ^[e]
• Communication theory: Add brief definition or description
•  Oxford: A city in Oxfordshire, UK, known as the location of Oxford University. ^[e]
•  Cambridge: Eastern England city; home to the University of Cambridge. ^[e]
•  Erdős number: Named for the Hungarian-American mathematician Paul Erdős and are an application of graph theory, a field in which he published extensively. ^[e]
• Paul Erdős: Add brief definition or description

In order to find articles dealing with similar topics, it's also worth looking at the Related Article subpages of such an article.

Finally, in case you are involved in homework assignments, please consider doing so via Eduzendium articles.

Looking forward to fruitful collaborative editing, Daniel Mietchen 10:52, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I have started pages on RSA, Alan Turing and various related things but since I'm an amateur cryptographer rather than a professional mathematician, you could almost certainly improve them. Sandy Harris 04:01, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for those. Initially, I'm planning to look at primality tests, pseudoprimes; sieve methods; Diophantine equations; elliptic curves. Richard Pinch 06:26, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Welcome!

Thanks for joining us! Nice to see another mathematician around! --Larry Sanger 22:31, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks -- looking forward to it. Richard Pinch 22:32, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

These small articles you are bringing over from wikipedia are excellent, nice work. Chris Day 21:29, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks -- I find that I contributed 282 articles (not all mathematics) to WP before I got disillusioned ... Richard Pinch 22:00, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguations

Hi Richard, thanks for spell-checking Unit (disambiguation). I saw that you started some other disambiguation pages, and even though no official rule has been established, it has become common practice to use the {{r}} template there, as on Related Pages. I have thus edited Transitivity (disambiguation) accordingly. Please check back and comment on whether you'd prefer to have the hierarchy back. --Daniel Mietchen 18:02, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I already put the hierarchy back in. Besides, you may also wish to have a mathematical look at CZ:List of words with multiple uses. --Daniel Mietchen 18:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try to remember to use that style. Richard Pinch 19:44, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Please also take another look at Order (disambiguation) and Order (mathematics). --Daniel Mietchen 11:11, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Editorship

Why aren't you a maths editor?--Paul Wormer 12:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've only been an author for a few weeks ... Richard Pinch 18:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Welcome, and a few pointers

Welcome Richard. I see you are jumping right in and creating lots of great new needed material. I would suggest that you spend a little time looking at the CZ:Article Mechanics page and related links for some general formatting and style issues. This will save you and others from later having to move clusters to the appropriate names and so forth. For example, Prime Number Theorem, not being a proper name, will need to be moved to Prime number theorem. There are lots of little things like these that are pointed out in the article mechanics. They aren't a big deal, because eventually someone will change these things if you don't, but it saves us all time when the articles start out in the right place. And believe me, I started out making lots of little mistakes just like we all do here!

Also, you can find some helpful hints at CZ:How To. David E. Volk 22:23, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Was there anything specific you felt I was getting wrong -- just saying "lots of little mistakes" is rather depressing. On the specific example you gave, I think I might point that I didn't create either of Prime Number Theorem or prime number theorem, and in fact haven't even contributed to either. So I'm not quite clear what you would have had me do there -- what I did do about the capitalisation issue is to ask for guidance at CZ Talk:Mathematics Workgroup#Capitalization conventions where it seemed that there is no clear guidance on the subject. (As it happens, I think Prime Number Theorem is a name, but I'm probably old-fashioned). Richard Pinch 22:36, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Unit matrix

Hi Richard, I'm glad to see that you accepted my opinion that unit matrix and identity matrix are synonyms. At WP I had to fight to have "unit matrix" renamed to "matrix of ones" (which is a rectangular matrix with all elements equal to 1).

I saw that you put lots of links to your matrix articles in the articles that I've started, that's a good thing to do, thank you. I hope that you, doing this, also have a quick look at the the surrounding text to check that I didn't slip up, mathematically or otherwise. If you see stuff in articles of mine that you frown upon, please feel free to correct it. --Paul Wormer 08:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree, I've never heard the all-ones matrix described as "unit matrix". Richard Pinch 07:24, 11 December 2008 (UTC)