Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mathematical landscape

:{{la|Mathematical landscape}} – (View AfD)(View log)

Original research. The term mathematical landscape is used in a [http://www.aimath.org/e8/ news item] of the American Institute of Mathematics in an attempt to explain the story. This use of the term is not common. I think that the article's use of the term extrapolates from the uncommon meaning in the AIM news item. The article goes on to list several interesting mathematical objects with little common ground. It ends with something called the "mathematical landscape conjecture", which very roughly reflects the beliefs of theoretical physicists like Edward Witten but its description is very vague, no references are given, and again, the name is a neologism as far as I can see.

This page was discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 24#Strange article. The conclusion was that the page as it stands contains too much original research. I waited more than two weeks to give the author the opportunity to work on it, but not much has happened. So I now propose the article be deleted. Jitse Niesen (talk) 07:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. "Indiscriminate" seems to me an accurate description of this collection of physical theories, group representations, triangular numbers, algebras... —David Eppstein 14:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as original research; an effort to formulate a vague conjecture, to be found at the end of the article. The common use of the "mathematical landscape" metaphor is that found in Queen of Mathematics, and has nothing to do with dimension. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:41, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. The individual mathematical factoids are sound enough, but the topic of the article, the so-called "Mathematical Landscape Conjecture", is unsourced speculation and appears to be a neologism. Gandalf61 15:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Theoretical physicists do try to explain constants, but this article reads like silly numerology with no substance. --KSmrq^T 16:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per David Eppstein. (As a professional mathematician, I'd like to believe my opinion may have additional weight.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to say delete. The cited news item used a metaphor once. That doesn't mean there's some convention according to which it is used generally. Even if no conventions is generally precisely defined, an idea could warrant a concept if it is in widespread use; mathematical beauty is an example. But this doesn't look like such a case. Of course it is possible that unbeknownst to me, mathematicians working in that area of research generally use the term. If so and someone points that out to me, I may alter this present opinion. Michael Hardy 19:57, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• possibly merge with something in physics. The bulk of the article seems concerned with the different models of the universe and the number of dimensions they require. I'm sure this is mentioned somewhere else in the physics articles. There may be some mathematical interest the pattern of objects which occur in different dimensions, for instance Poincaré conjecture getting simpler in higher dimensions and the pattern which occur in the homotopy groups of spheres. I don't have a strong objection to this article, I can see it being a hook which could get school kids interested in mathematics and physics, as its the sort of thing which becomes school yard currency. But it does not in its current state meet the wp grade. --Salix alba (talk) 23:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

• Weak delete. The premise of the article seems too ill-defined, and there is little to no criteria for what should or should not be included. Hell, all of mathematics is connected in some way or another and almost all of it can be applied in theoretical physics somewhere. That would make for a very long article. The conjecture in particular needs to be sourced if it is to be included. -- Fropuff 03:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• Keep I think that it is convenient to have a list of the various dimensionalities associated with physical theories. JRSpriggs 10:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

::comment could the article be cut down to focus on the physics and renamed? --Salix alba (talk) 10:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

:::I think that this content could be moved to an article on string theory landscapes. It's connection to pure mathematics is dubious at best --ScienceApologist 12:49, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

::::This article has nothing to do with string theory landscape which is something else entirely. -- Fropuff 20:44, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• Strong delete - A google search turns up planty of hits, but none in which this term is used in the way described in this article. From this I must conclude that this usage is a neologism and therefore a violation of WP:NOR. --EMS | Talk 19:59, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. The nomination expressed the deletion argument quite clearly. Proposed solutions (such as those discussed at WT:WPM) to "fix" the article are too problematic. There may be a kernel of some useful heuristic or motivation for physicists, but it is all much too vague here to be useful. --C S (Talk) 03:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. The AIM news item uses the word "mathematical landscape" to describe the appearance of exceptional Lie groups among the simple ones. The term is not in general use in this sense (as far as I know), but more significantly, the mathematical landscape article is not about this! Instead it is about the special features of different dimensions from the point of view of geometry (symmetry) and physics. There is scope for an article on this topic, but it would probably look very different from mathematical landscape. Nevertheless, I have copied some of the material (minus the numerology, neologisms and some of the unsourced speculation) to User:Geometry guy/Geometry by dimension, so that in the (likely) event of deletion, the material will remain available for a while (just in case anyone finds any of it useful). Geometry guy 12:22, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

• Delete unless properly refed Although this is quite interesting it is quite un-refed and seems to be WP:OR NBeale 06:54, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

:The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.