Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/33550336

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. 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.

The result was redirect to Perfect number. There are valid arguments on both sides of this debate and although AfD is not a vote I lumped the delete/merge/redirect !votes together which clearly showed a consensus not to keep. I will leave the history in place in case anyone wants to merge anything. J04n(talk page) 20:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

33550336[edit]

33550336 (number) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
8589869056 (number) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Integers notable only for being a perfect number. Articles misnamed; they should be 33550336 (number) and 8589869056 (number). (There may be other reasons for deletion) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:22, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Articles now moved, so my "misnamed" sentence is now incorrect. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep I do find the information somewhat interesting. I'm not experienced enough with the WP:TRIVIA policy to really make a firm decision. —ASPENSTI—TALK—CONTRIBUTIONS 16:39, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Relevant notability guidelines are at WP:NUMBER. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete because neither number is Numberwang. Had to say it. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 18:36, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • MERGE to List of perfect numbers. There is nothing else about the two besides listing the common properties of perfect numbers. Lom Konkreta (talk) 19:59, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Tthat would be redirect. I could live with that, although the articles/redirects would still be misnamed. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why should they be at "X (number)" if there's nothing else with the exact name X? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 20:51, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    See the redirect for the Unix 128-bit catastrophe year. There's a convention that numbers which are potentially years should be noted with (number). See Wikipedia:WikiProject Numbers for more details. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Optimists, aren't we? Year 33,550,336... Let me see,... per WikiGalaxyPedia::RPOV (Relativistic Potential Observer View) policy, page 3355066 must be a nondeterministic floating disambig page, which, for a warp 3 observer in Banach hyperspace, must list 33550336 (old Earth era), 335503366 (absolute Klingon time), ... in even-numbered parallel universes and only Na'vi::33550336 (Pandora time) in odd-numbered para-uns, as well as 33550336 (base-1010 number)." Lom Konkreta (talk) 22:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I've moved these to 33550336 (number) and 8589869056 (number). Certainly, both get mentioned a lot if for no other reason that they are only the 5th and 6th perfect numbers out of the first 10 billion integers [1]. It's like 6, 28, 496, 8128, and then, "what the fuck?"-- not another one until 33,550,336 and then not another one after that until 8,589,869,056 (which is also a phone number in San Diego). I don't see the point of deleting either of the two articles. If someone sets out to create ten billion separate pages, each one devoted to an integer, that might be a problem, but there aren't that many notable numerals once you get past six digits. There aren't that many intelligent articles on Wikipedia, as compared to hundreds of thousands of stupid ones. I guess there's a point to nominating these, I just don't know what it would be. Mandsford 00:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem with these articles is that they have no content beyond repetition of properties of perfect numbers. Just look at them: they are nearly exact copies of each other. Arthur Rubin points out above that there is even nothing to merge. Lom Konkreta (talk) 02:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that there was very little content in the articles, and that these have been, so far, copies of each other, and there does need to be more to this type of article than just stating a lone fact. And, if all there was to say was that "it's on a list of numbers", then a redirect would be the next choice. However, I've found and added more information to expand these beyond what the original author stated, including the history behind its discovery as a perfect number. It was the first perfect number identified after the ancient Greeks had identified the first four, and mathematical historians found that it was first recorded in a 15th century manuscript. [2]. I'll work on the other one tomorrow; there's a history behind that one as well, relating to the Italian mathematician Cataldi. Mandsford 02:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete both. Only interesting properties of these numbers are the fact that they are perfect numbers (and various straightforward consequences of that fact), so they fail the notability benchmark for articles on individual integers, as set out at Wikipedia:Notability (numbers). Information on history of discovery of perfect numbers belongs in perfect number article. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sad. Certainly, the additions will survive into a merger into perfect number, so no information is going to be lost, but I wish that we had more contributors who were interested in mathematics in the same way that sports fans are interested in athletes and game results. Wikipedia is taken more seriously now than it was five years ago, and the overall percentage of entertainment articles (sports, TV, movies, music) probably is less now than it was in 2006, but it's still got a long way to go. I compare essays like WP:PROF and WP:BOOK and WP:NUMBER to the wording of WP:ATHLETE and I see it as a reflection of our American culture-- intellectuals, unfortunately, are not assertive, while sports fans are. That's too bad. Mandsford 02:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just feel that our readers would be better served by all this information being on one page rather than spread over several. Reyk YO! 03:25, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My problem with seeing 33550336 as an athlete is that it does not seem to have enough muscle to reach the finish line. Tkuvho (talk) 14:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I actually used WP:BIO for notability as they're all approximately the same. By the way I've not ever even been to America. Dmcq (talk) 15:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, America. People think big in America. Sooner or later they will discover that the new WTC is exactly 33550336‎ angstroms tall, in which case we can restore this page to its former glory. Tkuvho (talk) 16:29, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Doubtful, since 33550336‎ angstroms is about two fifteenths of an inch. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew Powner 18:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC

  • Redirect to Perfect number. There is very little if any information worth merging, most of it being already there. If anyone wishes to merge more then I see no reason why they shouldn't, and in any case there is no harm at all in keeping these as redirects. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I guess there's no great harm in that even if search would find it anyhow. I just get this picture of us having an article or redirect for every single number with even minor interest up till the very first uninteresting number :) Dmcq (talk) 13:22, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and personally I really think almost all of the articles on individual numbers are pointless and we'd be better off without them. However, a redirect is another matter, and the first half dozen perfect numbers are a bit more interesting than most. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:39, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree it is worth a redirect. I wonder what the first uninteresting number on Wikipedia? It sounds like the sort of thing somebody with too much time on their hands has worked out. Dmcq (talk) 20:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:32, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: For articles on individual integers we have a more specific notability guideline than WP:GNG; it is set out atWikipedia:Notability (numbers). These articles do not meet the benchmark of notability at Wikipedia:Notability (numbers). Gandalf61 (talk) 13:21, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)Reply  That position does not stand against WP:N, here is what WP:N says:

A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below and is not excluded by WP:NOT. A topic is also presumed notable if it meets the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right.

Unscintillating (talk) 13:55, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: the previous and next posts had an edit conflict.
  • The feeling so far is pretty clear, but let's leave Notability (numbers) out of this. It's simply an essay, not a guideline, and it's got the same self-loathing, smart-is-not-cool quality that a lot of essays of that genre have. It's practically an apology for even being interested in numerals. The sports fans have the right idea. Mandsford 13:52, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Errm, at the top of Wikipedia:Notability (numbers) there is a box which says "This page documents an English Wikipedia notability guideline". That box has been there since at least as far back as December 2005, as can be seen here. What is the basis for saying that it is "simply an essay, not a guideline"? JamesBWatson (talk) 16:59, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:N is also a "standard", these particular numbers, as shown by reliable sources, don't need a list of "properties" to support their status as notable.  Unscintillating (talk) 20:19, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, yes, they do actually. Obviously a relevant subject-specific guideline takes precedence over the general guideline. If you think the WP:NUMBER benchmark of "at least three unrelated mathematical properties" should be changed, by all means start a discussion on its talk page or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics, but at the moment that is the notability benchmark for articles on individual integers and we can't arbitrarily ignore it in this AfD. Said my piece - I am done here. Gandalf61 (talk)
*I think I'm just stating common knowledge.  Please review the discussion at WT:N called "Do_subject-specific_guidelines_override_the_GNG".  This was a week-long discussion at WT:N just a month and a half ago.  The fundamental guideline definition for notability, stated at WP:N, is "worthy of notice".  Having only one (especially interesting) property does not prove that the topic is not "worthy of notice"; on the contrary, being the first (and the second and the third) non-trivial perfect number(s) to be discovered, and a history of over 500 years of notice being taken of this discovery (these discoveries), is reason to consider under WP:GNG.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:04, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • You may not have come across WP:NUMBER before, but never the less it is the long-standing notability benchmark that is always used to evaluate articles on individual integers. The purpose of the "three properties" benchmark is to avoid opening the floodgates to many thousands of trivial number articles that only say "x is a square number", "x is a prime number", "x is the 73rd Fibonacci number" etc. If you wish to argue that a more permissive benchmark should be applied to number articles then you need to take that argument elsewhere. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:37, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The problem with that reasoning is the assumption that the perfect numbers are "trivial" because, notwithstanding that mathematicians spent millennia searching for them, they don't pass some 21st century math student's "three-properties" test. Like WP:ATHLETE, though, WP:NUMBER doesn't exclude anything; it's a means of bringing in subjects that might not otherwise meet WP:N. As others have pointed out, there's a history behind both of these, evident from many reliable and verifiable sources, that makes them notable without having to pass some 3-tasks initiation ceremony to get into the mathematical frat house. Mandsford 16:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody is saying perfect numbers are trivial. It is simply that there is no real point to having these separate pages. The articles on the numbers are not monuments to them. These are single event numbers that won't be looked up on their own except as perfect numbers. If there was something else they would be looked up for as well that would be a different matter. They are minor in that there are a number of perfect numbers and these are not ones that come trippingly to mind when one thinks of a perfect number. Dmcq (talk) 17:43, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are right on point, you are implying that whether or not the WP:GNG is satisfied, that we should consider 33550336 (number) under the definition of notability in WP:N, "worthy of notice", and you say it is not "worthy of notice".  And my view is that this is a variation of WP:TLDNR for an unfamiliar number, that yes it is a bit of culture shock that such a long number is notable, and that this is part of what makes this number article interesting and "worthy of notice".  Also, as I have said, it provides a separate viewpoint from the perfect number article.  Unscintillating (talk) 16:56, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the mathematics and history references. Fotaun (talk) 17:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per Gandalf61's argument. Tkuvho (talk) 16:10, 6 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment He states, the "only interesting properties of these numbers are the fact that they are perfect numbers", however the history of their discovery is another interesting subject for the article. Fotaun (talk) 16:00, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But the history of their discovery is not a property of the numbers themselves. If you read my comment in full, you will find that I also said "Information on history of discovery of perfect numbers belongs in perfect number article". Gandalf61 (talk) 16:14, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The history is a property of the article, and the 2nd quote is more of an argument for merging, than deletion. Fotaun (talk) 23:27, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The history of the Mersenne primes may be interesting; the history of the perfect numbers is not as interesting. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:06, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Gandalf61's argument. I disagree that merging to Perfect number is an appropriate course of action, because the number 33550336 has properties other than being a perfect number (e.g. it is an integer, it is an even number, etc.) which could equally validly be the target of the redirect. Icalanise (talk) 18:50, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sure, but the perfect number article talks about evenness and integerness so those properties are relevant there. Reyk YO! 20:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, not notable. For 33550336 there's at least some argument for keeping (which I reject), but 8589869056 clearly fails. CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:48, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to perfect number. Stifle (talk) 17:46, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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