Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Non-Newtonian calculus (2nd nomination)

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 delete. Sandstein 06:31, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Non-Newtonian calculus[edit]

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This article, while ostensibly about the "subject" of Non-Newtonian calculus, is in actuality about a non-notable mathematics text book Non-Newtonian Calculus, written by Grossman (the primary author of the article as well) and Katz. This book, published in the 1970s, receives only 19 Google scholar citations. Of these, five are self-citations. The "reviews" referenced in the article—those that actually are reviews—are mostly of the kind that any reliably published serious mathematics textbook would have. MathSciNet and Zentralblatt routinely review most new books and paper that they index, for instance. The Mathematics Gazette routinely publishes very short reviews of items likely to be of interest to its readers. These in no way distinguish the book from other books of its kind. Many of the remaining "reviews" listed in the overlong "Citations" section just show that the book appeared in some list. One is even a link to a Google books search (which, ironically, doesn't even have a user review associated with it), and at least the few others that I checked have about as little content. It is clear that, if this book were a truly notable scholarly reference, that more people would have noticed it by now, and it would have a much higher Google citation count. It is not unusual for truly well-known books in this field to have thousands of citations. So I suggest that we not be fooled here by the routine reviews that basically every mathematics book receives, and focus on the question of what distinguishes this book from the thousands of other mathematics books that are published each year. I'd say not much. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:33, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. —Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:35, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The page now contains a huge pile of junk references, but when this last came up, in 2008, I found what appeared to be non-junk references; for example:

The Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, has published a paper on this subject, not written by Grossman or Katz.

I no longer have access to this article, so I can't revisit it to see if my opinion is the same. But in the last RFD I thought that it appeared to satisfy the general notability guidline, regardless of its mathematical value or lack thereof. —Mark Dominus (talk) 15:58, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and redirect to multiplicative calculus. There seems to be some literature on this topic, but most of it appears to be under the name "multiplicative calculus", not "non-Newtonian calculus". (Beware that not all hits for "multiplicative calculus" are related.) —Mark Dominus (talk) 16:05, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question: if a biography page for Grossman or Katz came up for review with fewer than 20 google scholar hits, would you oppose its deletion? Since many of the references to the book are self-references by its authors, why should a more lenient standard apply here? Tkuvho (talk) 18:00, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's a more lenient standard; I think it's the same standard. As far as I can tell, the topic of multiplicative calculus passes the WP:GNG. Neither Grossman nor Katz would satisfy that (very lenient) standard. It is not at all unusual or surprising that topic X might satisfy the notability standards, but that an author of some book about X might fail to satisfy the same standards, so I'm not sure what your point is. I did ignore self-references, as the GNG requires, and in fact I referred to those references above (among many others) as "junk". If you think I am making an error here, I wish you would say what you think it is. —Mark Dominus (talk) 18:32, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But we are not discussing multiplicative calculus here. I have not checked how notable that is. What we are discussing is a sensationalistic title "non-Newtonian", see also my detailed comments at WPM. Normally there would be no harm in redirecting this to "multiplicative calculus" (if that passes a follow-up AfD), but the nature of the title of the page under discussion calls specifically for a deletion. Tkuvho (talk) 19:57, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Mark's solution seems reasonable to me, provided the merger is of a sufficiently limited kind. There's little doubt in my mind that "multiplicative calculus" is notable. What seems much more dubious is the appropriation and rebranding of these ideas as "Non-Newtonian calculus". This is why I feel that the article should be judged on the notability of the book, rather than the underlying mathstical ideas. Sławomir Biały (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you do a google scholar search on "multiplicative calculus grossman" so as to rule out unrelated occurrences of the phrase "multiplicative calculus", you get a highest count of... 10 cites. How is this more notable? At any rate, we are not discussing multiplicative calculus, yet. Tkuvho (talk) 20:22, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My point is that multiplicative calculus is something people study, quite independently of Grossman's work. Grossman's book can be used as a reference there, as long as it is treated with WP:UNDUE weight (which it isn't—but that's a separate issue). The book seems to be reliable, even if not notable. Sławomir Biały (talk) 22:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: it's about a book that came out in 1972, just a year after Categories for a Working Mathematician. Just compare the scope and influence! Also, when authors of a book engage in zealous self-promotion of their work on Wikipedia, you know something is wrong. — Kallikanzarid^talk 19:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: This is a tough call. The article seems to consist mostly of justifications for itself so to me the issue is whether is anything to be saved from it. There are serious self-promotion issues here as well, as pointed out above, and I would like to suggest that people who write about their own work on WP are not following the spirit of the project and should desist. The WP:COI guideline is meant to prevent this type of behavior. Nevertheless, that issue is independent of whether the subject meets notability guidelines etc. Part of the problem here is that most of the article seems to be about the book Non-Newtonian Calculus rather than it's subject. Notability for the book or the related articles has not been established since the requirement is that it should have a lasting and significant impact in the field; lists of reviews are not sufficient for this. The book can be used as a reference, but the issue for the material is whether it has been picked up and passed on by other authors, in other words secondary sources. Doing the relevant web searches I found many hits, but all could be traced back to the same two or three authors associated with the original work. So I'm forced to concluded that the material here is based solely on primary sources. WP is an encyclopedia and so its content should based on secondary sources and I see no evidence that this material meets that criterion.--RDBury (talk) 03:41, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as non-notable. During the previous AfD, I searched extensively for references. MathSciNet listed three references which mentioned non-Newtonian calculus anywhere: The book of Michael Grossman and Robert Katz, a book by Jane Grossman, Michael Grossman, and Robert Katz, and a book by Michael Grossman. Of these, only the first (the topic of the article) had any citations whatsoever, and all but one of those were self-citations. The MathSciNet review was not enthusiastic. I performed a similar experiment with Zentralblatt and got the same results. So the book's impact on professional mathematics seems to be null.
Later during the AfD I tried Google scholar. This produced a more extensive list of articles, all but one of which were by the Grossmans and Katz (in various combinations). It also produced lists of books received (which does not establish notability), a review, and advertisements apparently placed by the authors. That is, I found only one non-self-citation to this book in the almost 40 years since the book was published.
Since then, User:Smithpith (who has in the past stated that he is Michael Grossman) has tracked down many more citations. The article lists innumerable "mentions" or "reviews" of the book. The citations that would establish notability, however, are citations in papers. I picked one at random to look at: David Baqaee, "Intertemporal choice: a Nash bargaining approach", Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Research: Discussion Paper Series, ISSN 1177-7567, September 2010. The only place Grossman and Katz's book is mentioned is on page 17 (page 19 of the PDF), where the author writes: "Alternatively, one could use the notion of a 'product integral' to define the weighted Nash product (see, for example, Grossman and Katz (1972) for more information)." Product integrals have a history going back to Vito Volterra in 1887; the way I read that sentence, Grossman and Katz are being cited here as expositors, not as researchers. It is possible to have a notable expository book, but the book seems intended as a research monograph.
Are all the references like that? I am not sure. If most of them are, then any article on the book would have to present it as notable exposition, not notable research; but one would expect a notable research monograph to be cited as research, not as exposition. Perhaps someone with more patience than me will investigate the quality and kind of citations the book has gathered. Myself, I expect a notable 40-year old book to have more references. Good 40-year old mathematical books or papers have hundreds of citations. It's possible that this could change, but as always, WP:CRYSTAL; we don't have articles on the "next big thing" until that thing is actually notable. I don't think the book Non-Newtonian calculus is notable now, and I don't think it'll ever get there. Ozob (talk) 11:20, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as non-notable. Hardly any mention in either Math Reviews or Google Scholar, hardly any scholarly impact. The only thing going for "non-Newtonian calculus" is the provocative title, which also explains why publishers were lured into publishing such a non-theory in the first place. Tkuvho (talk) 11:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as non-notable, essentially per Ozob & slawomir Bialy above.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:25, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, non-notable. Zero scholarly impact, few mentions or references. CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:34, 23 April 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.