User talk:Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog/sandbox 2

Existing articles on (Introduction to the) mathematics of general relativity are virtually useless

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

My recent DIFF addition to the Spacetime article was reverted by User:Zefr, justified by policies WP:SYNTH and WP:NOTTEXTBOOK.

I created this new section because, quite frankly, I find the existing articles on Introduction to the mathematics of general relativity and Mathematics of general relativity to be virtually useless for their presumably intended target audiences. These two articles are nothing but lists of mathematical concepts that provide the reader with virtually no clues as to how these concepts apply to general relativity.

The existing two Wikipedia articles on this subject provide absolutely no assistance to, say, a college student who wants a bit of guidance getting through a chapter of, say, Hartle, Wald, or Schultz.

• In regards to WP:SYNTH: I have, as much as possible, tried to avoid introducing my own original thoughts on the subject. Unfortunately, adding ALL of the citations that I could have put in to justify each and every single statement to show that I haven't been trying to show off my own thoughts on the subject would have made the text unreadable. I chose to limit my citations to the more obvious.
• In regards to WP:NOTTEXTBOOK: If, by this objection, User:Zefr means that I have provided many detailed derivations, I assert that the presence of detailed derivations does not make an article a textbook. I note that derivations are common in articles on relativistic topics. For example:
  • Relativistic_Doppler_effect#Relativistic_longitudinal_Doppler_effect
  • Michelson–Morley_experiment#Light_path_analysis_and_consequences
  • Kennedy–Thorndike_experiment#Basic_theory_of_the_experiment
  • Special_relativity#Invariant_interval
  • and so on and so forth...

The only thing that I have done here that is different from the above, is that I have strung together a series of related derivations together in logical, coherent order, following as guide a classic semi-popular book on the subject by Lillian Lieber, whom many of you might recognize as the author of The Education of T.C. Mits.

• Do we want Wikipedia to be a useful resource?
• Or do we insist that Wikipedia adhere rigidly to general guidelines that result in the articles becoming useless for their supposedly intended purpose?

Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 17:59, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Understanding derivations, rather than merely knowing abstract definitions, is an important part of physics and mathematics. I note that many mathematical articles, especially those of an introductory nature (directed towards K-12 students), include derivations as an integral part of their presentation. Articles covering upper-level topics tend to be more abstract. Here are some examples of mathematics articles that use derivations, interpretative segments, "how to" segments, and detailed discussion of specific use cases as part of their presentation.

• Quadratic equation
• Solving quadratic equations with continued fractions
• Linear equation
• Cubic function
• and so forth

Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 08:11, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Notes

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.