School talk:Mathematics

Two different pages were created for "School of mathematics". The original page for the School of mathematics that was developed at Wikibooks was imported to School of Mathematics. The material from that page was pasted into School:Mathematics. --JWSchmidt 01:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it should be the "School Of Infomatics" because of it's integration with Computer Science

Disorganized Content
All of the content in the School of Mathematics seems to be very disorganized. Articles on the same topic are distributed in many places. Are there any plans for the structure of the content? I am unsure where to contribute lectures. --Pps 16:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. I am taking inspiration for my projects from Introduction to Swedish. This is a fine example of project design that could suit the mathematical department well. Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 19:13, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Second. I think everyone needs to look at this: Topic:Electrical_engineering. It appears to be the most well organized topic page I have found. Anyone willing to tackle that challenge.


 * Wow. School:Electrical_engineering is brilliantly organized. There should be a standard, organized layout for all School: pages. It is confusing for others if each page is not organized in mostly the same way. Charcoal (talk) 00:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

It looks like a lot of the content here is under the topic namespace when it wouldn't really qualify as a department (see Topics). Using School:Engineering as a model, I propose we structure topics roughly as follows:

Elementary Mathematics
 * Primary School
 * High School/College

Applied Mathematics
 * Actuarial Science
 * Applied Analysis and Differential Equations
 * Discrete Mathematics
 * Game Theory
 * Numerical Analysis
 * Mathematical Physics
 * Probability
 * Statistics

Pure Mathematics
 * Algebra
 * Algebraic Geometry
 * Abstract Analysis
 * Category Theory (Possibly merge with Algebra?)
 * Graph Theory
 * Mathematical Logic & Foundations
 * Number Theory
 * Philosophy of Mathematics
 * Topology

The topics that we have now would then be moved to courses in their respective departments since the individual course topics don't seem to have enough content to warrant their own departments right now. Maybe once we have more than 2-3 courses on e.g. group theory, sub-departments can be made, but for now it just seems cluttered with empty departments.

We could also probably borrow some of the page layout from School:Engineering, since it seems to be organized very well. I'd be willing to do the restructuring if this sounds good to people, but I don't really know how to move pages, or even if I have the necessary permissions.

Finally, we have a large list of contributors on the front page. I understand there's some way to see if they're all still active or not, although I don't know how to do that. It would probably be beneficial to move most/all of the list to a separate page. Any thoughts? Ndriscoll 09:14, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Algebraic Notation & keeping articles understandable
This is a great idea! However, i think that it would be good to start with a page explaining algebraic notation right from the basics through to advanced notation. The articles also need to remain understandable for their target audience for example if an article is aimed at high-school students, it needs to be understandable by them. Although articles shouldn't be 'dumbed-down' but just expanded to explain the basics before developing the more advanced topics. 217.44.174.151 19:54, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Unification of Information
Would it be possible to unify some of the parts of this School to reduce the workload of maintaining separate, but similar sections? For example, it might be useful to have all reference material for a particular subject on the same page. I suggest this for two reasons. First, maintaining two similar but separate pages is difficult, and second, I think unifying some material would make it easier for newcomers to find what they are looking for. Ideas? Comments? Deltinu 05:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Curricula
One thing we need to develop here is a set of mathematics curricula for grades K–12 (i.e., what students should know in what grade). I've gone looking for this information online myself from time to time and never found a satisfactory list that I didn't have to pay for first. (Of course, it goes without saying that we should not simply copy any lists found at other websites, free or not.) To this end, I've begun the page Mathematics curriculum (with the plural Mathematics curricula as a redirect). - dcljr 23:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The UK Gov. publishes it's school curricula online here: http://www.nc.uk.net/webdav/harmonise?Page/@id=6004&Subject/@id=22 These could be used as a model. Smockdotcom 21:05, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

About the Statistics and Probability Courses
Who is contributing to the advanced undergraduate/graduate courses on this subject? The undergraduate course on statistics shouldn't be in the Department of Statistics page? --Lucas Gallindo 03:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Mathematics Userbox
Here's a user box that you might interested in:

Use of 'Math'
This isn't used in the UK, 'Maths' is used instead of mathematics. Better to use mathematics all round I think. Smockdotcom 21:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Why are combinatorics and optimisation put together?
Please forgive my ignorance. I think they are different topics with some overlapping.Hillgentleman|User talk:hillgentleman 10:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
 * They are not always put together. When they are put together it would be, because as you mentioned, there is significant overlapping, and there is enough time in a course to cover both.  Combinatorial optimisation is an actual sub-subdicipline of mathematics that is right at the boundry between Discrete Maths and Theoretical Computer Science.

Main page picture
Would it be possible to have the picture at the top of the School of Mathematics main page cycle through a selection of several different pictures? The main page for the whole of Wikiversity seems to have this feature. It might be good if we could implement this for our school's main page.

Deltinu 05:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

{| align=right padding=0 cellspacing=0 width=32% style="background:none"

That is how it is done on the right bar of the main page (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page/Communications_and_community).


 * Thanks :-) Deltinu 07:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Eculid's Elements...
Have started an effort to copy a 1896 version (now in the Public Domain) into WikiSource here : http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Euclid

You may want to take a look :-) ShakespeareFan00 20:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Getting the Algebra page up to snuff
In case you haven't seen it, there was an article about how incomplete the college algebra section of wikiversity is. If this were wikipedia, this course would be full fixed and up and running. Of course this is wikiversity, where ideas lingure and aren't acted on for months at a time. Algebra work is spread over a miread of pages, but I'm going to focus on getting College Algebra a good go first, since it is the one that people reading that article will be reading. Hopefully others can help, but I'm going to see what I can do on my own first. Hopefully it will be more than what has been done in the last half year.--Rayc 20:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I found the volume of algebra pages and the general outline of the math portal to be so confusing that I felt it necessary to flesh out the new algebra department with organization. It's a constant battle of content development versus organization until we get a steady state. Please lets everyone categorize everything as obviously as possible sos we can find our ways around in the dark. - gustable

old talk page rescued
Hi, there was still comments from the old page available at Talk:Wikiversity:School of Mathematics. Before deleting that page, the content is saved below !!

activity
I am building activity based content targetting US Middle and HS Math students. The primary activity builds on work done relating mathematics and origami with connections to physics, chemistry and biology. I currently teach in a small school in Oracle, AZ. This is an emerging area with opportunities for collaboration, linking and sharing.

Peter Edwards, Tucson AZ

I'll help. However, we need to have lesson plans and a true syllabus. Look in my profile for the book/course i was trying to create. That's somewhat of an image of how I would like to organize a school of mathematics into. Starting with Basic Mathematics and moving up into Calculus. The thing that differs a course from a book is that the instructor knows that some books suck and so he has to guide his students through the various books. I find flaws in many of the wikibooks and so I try adjusting them and linking them. I found that the PEMDAS section wasn't actually the greatest, mainly because they show exponents using PEMDAS rather than teaching exponenets. Thus i gave a see also link. Perhaps we should create a member book. I've always had an interest in such thing as a member book. An log of things that still need to be done to complete a course. What part editors are working on and what part authors are working on. Whatn parts they need resources in. Quiz material, diagrams, so forth. --Cyberman 02:11, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Courses
I have started work on a course based closely on the first semester of my university's mathematics course. I have also started with creating categories for other courses. Help would be happily accepted. Also, feedback would be appreciated. You can contact me by my talk page or by emailing me at my email.

--Jimmy 02:00, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We already have a Mathematics bookshelf. Shouldn't these links go on that page, so readers can find the contents more easily? Carandol 12:40, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The difference is that this is a 'course' not a book. People don't look here for information, they use this as a syllabus for whatever reasons they might have. So I don't really think it should just be another book on the bookshelf. Of course, within the course(s), it would often be referred to the bookshelf for extra information, questions etc.

--Jimmy 14:24, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Any course that is more than just a list of topics is effectively a book.

Thus many textbooks are just printed versions of successful courses, and many lecture courses oral presentations of a particular textbook. The difference is minimal, the overlap considerable.

A syllabus that said, say, 'Lesson 1, Proof by induction; Lesson 2, Summation of standard series; ...' and no more wouldn't be a book, but that does not seem to be quite what you are planning. Carandol 14:11, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Its still in work... it takes time you know... Jimmy

Division by topic vs. by school level
Whouldnt it be better if there was "stages" of mathematics divided in topics rather than "high school" and primary school mathematics? Becouse im not really sure what those deal with becouse im not from the us. :/

I prefectly agree with your idea. It is kind of stupid to say "high school math", "primary school math". For example, calculus is high school subject for some but university math subject for the others.-Wshun 15:21, 4 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I also agree, but what other method would you suggest? Just list the topics in order of difficulty?  I mean, math is mostly linear until you get to 2nd/3rd year University level, so is that what you're thinking--just list the topics in order from most elementary to most advanced?  Gandalfxviv 19:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The stages idea is perfect, but don't forget, multiple stages can be placed in each of the three academic levels, i.e. primary, secondary, tertiary. Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 19:16, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Actual Courses
Why are they all... based on types of equations and stuff. WHy don't we make them based on actual mathmatics courses that can be taken through high school and college like...

Pre Algebra Algebra Geometry Algebra II Pre Calculus Calculus Calculus II Calculus III Statistics and so on...

Why make it so confusing? We should make it in a way where people can actually understand what it is their learning based on the cource title. --Dinero 02:15, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Agree! Indeed we can make it even better then the actual courses. Connection among different topics should be made more efficient than our real life courses. -Wshun 14:35, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikiversity is a noble but perhaps misguided effort. the learners will tend to be self leaners who will not want they're hand held the entire way. Perhaps wikiversity shoudl be structure on wikibooks so that the current textbooks we have supply as the course material.

Translation
I need help on translating a course in mathematics. Please follow the link for details. Dmitri83 11:55, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Dependecy Tree Nature
Mathematics has a much stronger "dependency tree nature" than most subjects, understanding of a previous subject is vital to understanding the current subject. A common problem in university math courses is that students do not fully understand/remember some previous concept or were never taught some fundementals; either because it was too hard, and the teacher taught by rote memorization* or never really explain the reasoning of mathematics.

Because of this, I suggest authors of books and syllabues would create conceptual backlinks to dependent material in their work. So for example, if you have sentance that has the word "set" in it, you would backlink to a section of a book on set theory, that section would contain well integrated backlinks to other fundementals (which might eventually go into number theory and the philosophy/history of mathematics). So for the person who asks why, they would be quickly redirected to their answers. Reading my textbook right now, if it had that kind of comprihensive hyperlinked backtracking, I would be soo more productive.


 * I think this is a good idea. However, I think we also need to keep in mind, that redundancy can be useful. For instance, if we have a book on set theory, it still might be useful to give a summary of what sets are in another book. I think having the same thing written in different ways can be helpful for the reader.

Also, when going through examples and proofs, manipulations tend to be shortened and some details are skipped assuming you already remember perfectly the previous subject. So for example: $$\frac{k(k+1)+2(k+1)}{2}$$ is just reduced to in one step $$\frac{(k+1)(k+2)}{2}$$, vs. showing $$\frac{k(k+1)+2(k+1)}{2} = \frac{k^2+k+2k+2}{2} = \frac{k^2+3k+2}{2}{2} = \frac{(k+1)(k+2)}{2}$$ (that could of also had a table to the right showing the various backlinked laws being used).

That could get tedious quick for someone who does know perfectly how it works. So in addition to actually showing your work, you can have "hiding" options (like a directory tree almost) which hide the simpiler details for you.

You could even automate some of this by computer.


 * (My highschool teacher said something approximate to this: "I'm not going to explain the why of logarithms, it's just faster to memorize this 7 x 5 table of formulas and be done with it and plus I don't really understand it myself.")


 * --MahyarMcDonald 07:19, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Calculus course
Is it alright for me to start a calculus course on here?

Oh good heavens Please do!! -user:gustable

No courses in Differential Equations?
I came here to brush up a bit on DE since I'm taking DE 2 next semester and it's been 2 years since I took DE 1. However, there seems to be very little on the topic of differential equations here and no DE course at all. DE covers important material, and most science and engineering programs require at least one or two courses in differential equations (on top of basic and intermediate calculus). DE is certainly a lot more important, and is far more widely used than things like set theory or number theory (which both already have courses). So why are there no DE courses yet?Uniqueuponhim 13:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Topology
Are there enough people interested in forming a sort of topology team? I noticed someone started the Topology topic and I wrote the first lesson for it, just wondering if there were any other people that wanted to help out with it, since it's still in such a beginning stage. Gandalfxviv 19:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Fractions and math basics
I just looked through the fractions section here at Wikiversity and it could use some work. Fortunately, we don't need to write anything, we can just borrow a lot of the necessary material from Wikibooks' Applied Math Basics; the fractions section there is much more complete and in-depth. --71.112.145.203 07:12, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Collaboration
Would anyone like to help with teaching on Medical Statistics? Go raibh mile maith agaibh 23:50, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Effective Teaching
I just recently found this particular wing of the wikimunity and upon poking around a little I can see that it is still very much in its infancy as there isn't much much standard material above calculus like ODEs, PDEs, fourier series, complex analysis and other thing that non-mathematicians like to use. Now, I'm not complaining, this is a good thing from my perspective because it means I can help the comunity more. Anyway, what I want to say is that I believe that one of the major issues with how math is tout is that almost all text and many teachers do not care to show students all the steps involved with the problem. I understand that this is a difficult thing to tag down, when you are teaching a calculus class you should not have to tell people every time you use addition. In the interest of time teacher and texts alike choose to leave out menial steps and operations along that way and students are expected to keep up. I don't mean to criticize these teachers, however, this is the overwhelming complaint from the average student. I do want to criticize most text as they have no excuse and often times leave out more than a lecture would when attempting to explain advanced concepts. Now, as I said before, when teaching a calculus class you shouldn't have to tell people every time you use addition, however, the problem is that much more complicated are often left out and with no consistency. Every teacher and text makes different assumptions as to what students are expected to take for granted. I would like to propose that the School of Math here dose something to help this. Every lecture should establish a list of assumption that are made concerning methods and steps used that lecture. The words: "by inspection", "obviously", "by algebra" (or any other relatively lower level math), "it can be seen", "it can be shown", and (I have actually seen this before!) "as any small child can see" should never be used in any explanation of anything on the site. I know some people call this hand holding and spoon feeding and what not, but you know what, some people need that, there are many times it would have helped me. It's far easier to glaze over a step you didn't need to see than it is to be stuck trying to figure out what happened in the whitespace between two lines of an explanation. Again, I think the most practical way to do this is to state exactly what type of steps you intend to skip at the beginning of a lecture and stick with it. It should also be particularly easy for readers to ask for such information when they are studying lectures. Anywany, thanks for reading, please tell me what you think. Smitty985 05:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)Smitty958

Complexity Theory
Technically, Complexity Theory (Topic:Complexity_theory) is Computer Science, but Computer Science is categorised under engineering, which Complexity theory is not. Would it be possible for the topic to be included in both? This is a moot point and concerns itself more with the semantics of the term ‘Computer Science,’ but I think it is important. Many Mathematicians work in the field of Complexity Theory, as do many Computer Scientists, so I would consider it to be an ‘Interdisiplinary Study.’

Does this count as a formal request for the inclusion of the Institute of Complexity Theory in the School of Mathematics?

― Kinkydarkbird 09:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Emptying out Active Participants
If there are no objections I was planning to empty out the active participant list a bit, just so those of us still around who have a better idea of who they can talk to. My criteria will be the most recent edit, if someone hasn't contributed in a year or so I think it should be safe to remove them for the active participants list. Thenub314 13:03, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Transferring content from Wikipedia
Hello. I am a Wikipedia editor new to Wikiversity. Is Example of a non-associative algebra something right here, e.g. in topic: Higher algebra? It is definitely not an encyclopedic topic (at least as “Example”, in singular) and the content now is essentially superseded with Composition algebra. There will be no harm to Wikipedia to remove the problematic “article”, but possibly this project is interested in an already written and formatted content of such kind. Incnis Mrsi (discuss • contribs) 08:25, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Identify coverage of the Common Core mathematics curriculum
I suggest that as courses are added those that intend to meet the goals of the common core curriculum be noted. See: Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative and also: http://www.corestandards.org/Math/ In addition, it may be useful to explicitly state that one goal of the School of Mathematics is to eventually include learning resources that taken together meet the full curriculum requirements. Thanks! --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 17:04, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Organization of content
The content needs to be more organized in a more precise way at: School of mathematics. Rayn777s (discuss • contribs) 13:13, 24 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Be bold. If you have a vision for organizing the content, please do so. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 15:17, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Abi na Zie afeo (discuss • contribs) 19:19, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Content expansion
Hello, the university wiki should expand its contents through the resources of the sister project, i.e. wiki book, wiki source and wikipedia.

You can also write sample questions so that people can improve their knowledge by solving them. AHEJJWILEMAMALIDGED (discuss • contribs) 07:53, 20 October 2022 (UTC)