User talk:Aleksander Stos/ComplexNumberAdvanced

I believe I understand the purpose of this page, and it's pretty cool. It makes sense in math and logic, and any topic (such as physics) that is subject to formalization and formula-ization--but what, exactly, are you doing? How can you sum it up or articulate it? We might find a better name than "essentials" once you answer that question. Note what it says at the bottom of CZ:Subpage Pilot about how to add new subpage types. --Larry Sanger 08:04, 13 August 2007 (CDT)

In particular, does it matter that the items listed here be essential? Is it also important that they be listed formally? Is there an analog you would recommend for other non-formal fields like literature or zoology? --Larry Sanger 08:10, 13 August 2007 (CDT)

Primarily, I wrote it for myself, to see *what* my idea is (ie. I posed myself your question ;-) ) and whether it makes sense. I admit that I didn't take part in the Subpage Pilot. I'll read it and then give an answer. Aleksander Stos 11:22, 13 August 2007 (CDT)

OK I took a look at that. What I meant can be best described in geek terms as a "reference manual", as opposed to "tutorial". Among the optional subpages proposed on CZ:Subpage Pilot I do not find my entry, but could define it as a more advanced/dense counterpart to "tutorial" and "student" subpage (notice that the latter is intended for younger students). Note that IMHO our basic version of maths articles by definition (many discussions) looks like "tutorial" or "younger student" in the above sense.

Actually I could define the subpage I play with by the reader I'd like to address. This is a slightly more advanced user of maths, as opposed to layman. A student that has already heard of/know something about the subject but want to recall what it was exactly. A more advanced/graduate student who already acquired basics of general math culture and want to attack a new notion (so that the "reference manual" is intended to be reasonably self-contained). Yet more advanced students/PhD students of maths/stats/physics/"hard sciences" who may want to verify definitions/theorems they use. And why not teachers of these students. Or just someone who knows already the basics and wants to go a bit further. IMHO all these people might find our basic form of math articles too easy, too sparse or --at worst-- annoying to read through and filter out the needed info. Notice that I do not put in question the basic form of our articles itself; actually I think that the basic version should be aimed at someone who wants to be introduced into the matter with the minimum of prerequisites, at least for some basic/general/non-specialist topics.

So "reference manual"/"essentials" pages are meant to be more succinct, well formalized (this could be the main difference with the basic intro), sometimes even more precise (well, in the basic article we assume we may be often informal). On the example of the Complex number we see that the "manual" is half as long and formally covers just a bit more maths -- and yet can be reasonably expanded. On second thought I'd like to see also some illustrating examples, computations, and, yes, proofs, whatever useful staff that pays for itself -- so not only "the core definitions" could be allowed. Consider that with our approach we can hardly insert any proof in the basic version. Our approach is not a bad thing --we know why and what we are doing-- but the lack of advanced stuff might be also a great disadvantage for a ultimate reference source in spe.

That said, I'm open to any other name that could describe the aim of the page.

The bottom line is that I shall translate it into a more concrete subpage proposal as indicated on the pilot page. Aleksander Stos 15:14, 13 August 2007 (CDT)