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I really hate that stupid particle article. It should never have been set up. It should just have been a disambiguation page. And now having looked at that parameter page I think the same about it. The argument page is about an actual topic rather than being a dictionary word with its close meanings
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It is hard to change "mathematical constant" for the reasons discussed above, though it does mean "special numbers", "exceptional numbers", etc. Another idea would be to try to change the title of the other article, for example "constant quantity (mathematics)" and "variable quantity (mathematics)".
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We need to keep two discussions apart here. The first is that the article, if kept, needs to cover only the concept of constants as opposed to variables, not all kinds of other uses of the word "constant" such as in e.g. constant function. There are already separate articles for each of the other
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for that. The page about variables explains the idea well an in the context of the difference between variables and constants and points to the other uses. This page on ts own is a bit too low level just trying to deal with the single topic constant on its own. Knowledge is an encyclopaedia not a
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The subjects are, despite the names, different. Mathematical terminology is not always consistent (for example field in mathematical physics is completely different than field in algebra), and these are the best titles for the subjects. Changing the names based on what the terminology ought to be
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I agree that this article should continue to exist. Merely redirecting it effectively deletes the page without a proper deletion discussion, and should require consensus. Moreover, the average reader arriving at the disambiguation page will not have the first clue of which "constant" is being
1067:. There's no semantic difference between that and this title, and as "mathematical constant" is the usual term for known constants in mathematics that should be the target. The links to it would need checking and fixing up: they seem almost all to be in mathematics articles so a link
865:
This change broke a lot of links that now have nowhere to go. The problem is that there are two meanings of constant in mathematics: (1) something that stays unchanged, not depending on other variables, and (2) a number that is independently interesting. The second meaning is
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For the reasons stated above, "Constant (mathematics)" is a bit unfortunate since there are numerous meanings of the word constant in mathematics. However, since there are lots of links to this page the approach suggested above might be better: Redirect this to
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in that there's no particular mathematical significance to its value, because we don't expect these to be the final results for the conjecture. It is just a number big enough to make the proof work. But it's a constant, because it doesn't depend on
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assumes that this article exists. A merge is a possibility, but not one that appeals to me (certainly not until I see some kind of proposal for what the merged article might look like). It does seem that this article has a scope that's wider than
1128:, but probably not independent of the machine you're running the algorithm on or the quirks of the programmer who implemented the algorithm". For a more mathematical example (the one that brought me here) there's a link to this article in
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Hello, I was just wondering if anyone could get their hands on a graph of any constant. It's basically a horizontal line which you can plot by putting something like f(x)=12 or y=7 ... Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks,
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The similarity of the two titles is misleading. Perhaps "mathematical constant" should be renamed "special numbers in mathematics", or "remarkable numbers", etc. This would make any merge proposal implausible.
914:" hatnote at the top of that article. Both basic meanings of constant are explained in the lead paragraph of that article. Is there really a need for a separate article on constants as opposed to variables?
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go to
Mathematical constant really make sense in that context?) If some kid is starting to learn math, I don't want them to have to wade through Mathematical constants; they should get the overview here.
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I didn't think it was necessary to define the constant of integration right here, since it is defined later, so I removed this. I also added some clarifying phrases as well for ease of understanding.
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I'd like to hold off on actually doing this until others have had a chance to weigh in, but that works for me. The variable article indeed covers much of the same ground, better than this one. —
1187:. I think all mathematicians have a feel for what "constant" means in this sense (more or less: something held constant over a specific scope), but I've never seen a really good definition. --
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The most plausible solution is to change the name of this article so as not to give a misleading impression that its topic is the same as that of the other article. Maybe a merger with
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while those using "constant" just to say something doesn't change don't need a link as it's a common
English word. I suspect that would cover all or almost all the maths use cases.--
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Oppose merge. The articles have different subjects. This article is about the general concept of constants as opposed to variables in mathematical expressions and equations, whereas
1100:. But this article is (or should be) about a different meaning: things in expressions that look like variables but do not vary. You know, if I write that the running time of
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That won't work at all. Replacing STANDARD language with more complicated language that is less likely to be understood is not appropriate within
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could work; I'm not sure. I've added a new section to this article, on context-dependence, which should make it even clearer that the topic is different.
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Oppose merger. This article is not really about constants despite its title. It is about variables whose value remains the same within a certain context.
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I think this page should be reduced to a disambiguation page, because "constant" has many different meanings in mathematics; it may refer to (see
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all jumbled up into one article. Knowledge is not a dictionary. There is no parameter topic or particle topic with articles written about them.
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is about numbers that have an intrinsic mathematical meaning: π, e, etc. Or, to pick one that we don't know the value of very precisely,
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This article seems clearly to be way past stub quality; I'm provisionally re-rating it as C-class, and I'd love to hear other opinions. -
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These are still quite closely related and the general concept along with specific constants can indeed be discussed on the same page. --
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The present titles do create a misleading impression that they're the same topic, but those proposed names are terrible.
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suggests that this article should remain as a general discussion of "constant" in the wider (mathematical) sense. --
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I also think that the articles should remain distinct, though there is serious need for renaming. Any ideas?
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I still disagree, but let's wait and see what other feedback you get. I will mention this discussion at
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on
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This article was the subject of a Wiki
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There is a big difference to me, and this is exactly what brought me here into this discussion.
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are additional meanings of the word that should be disambiguated. The question then is whether
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is constant if it always assumes the same value independent of how its parameters are varied
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can be considered other instances of the broad concept of "constant", compare for example
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would be a good idea. It should not be a disambiguation page as there is already the page
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These are very closely related and should be discussed on the same page in two different
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would make sense for many; others would be covered by other topics linked such as
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I agree. I did qualify my suggestion by "perhaps". Do you have a better title?
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Interesting, I hadn't considered that. Ideas for a name of the combined article?
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into a single article with redirects from the original titles. Precedents are
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I would agree with that. I would also include "constant functions" like
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and put a "Constant (mathematics) redirects here. For other uses, see
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and put a "Constant (mathematics) redirects here. For other uses, see
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should be expanded to an article with other meanings presented in
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Some (often unknown or undetermined) value that in contrast to a
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Oppose merger, largely for reasons already stated. The article
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is a much broader notion of constant that encompasses not only
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for some proven bounds on the conjecture, each of the form
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I have added additional sources throughout the article.
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Mathematical constant is mostly about famous numbers -
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constant referring to any non-varying value (such as
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Wiki
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I added a limit example at the end of this section.
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rather than standard usage seems like a bad idea.--
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