Talk:Mutation (algebra)

Notability

I've never heard of this term used this way. Can we find the this usage in a couple texts? Rschwieb (talk) 23:07, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

There are three references in the article: the main source source referred to, Elduque & Myung (1994) is a book actually about this topic. It is viewable on Google Books. You might also like to visit the Planet Math page for background. Deltahedron (talk) 07:40, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Doh, I guess if I leave out what I think is obvious, I risk getting obvious answers. Of course I looked at the books in the article. Firstly, the McCrimmon reference doesn't appear to use the term "mutation." It seems only to be a reference for the term "isotope." Secondly I do not consider a single book using a term "enough." There really ought to be two or three "real" text references. Searching googlebooks for "mutation algebra" does look like it yields enough good hits. If I have some time to burn I might write out the references, but I'd really prefer if someone handy with reference-producing tools would do it. Rschwieb (talk) 14:36, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

It is surprising that an entire academic book on this specific subject should not be enough. Perhaps the following journal articles will constitute "real" references. The Zentralblatt links lead to reviews that explicitly support the definition of the article.

• Boers, A.H. (1995). "Mutation algebras of a nonassociative algebra". Indag. Math., New Ser. 6: 25–33. Zbl 0836.17002.
• Montaner, Fernando (1993). "Power associativity in mutations of associative algebras". Commun. Algebra. 21: 1359–1370. Zbl 0772.17013.
• Osborn, J.Marshall (1982). "The Lie-admissible mutation A(r,s) of an associative algebra A". Hadronic J. 5: 904–930. Zbl 0488.17008.
• Ko, Young So (1981). "Lie-admissible mutation algebras". Bull. Korean Math. Soc. 17: 103–107. Zbl 0517.17009.

The term "mutation" in the context of Jordan algebra is documented in the references to the main article on that subject, Mutation (Jordan algebra), such as

• Koecher, Max (1999). Krieg, Aloys; Walcher, Sebastian (eds.). The Minnesota Notes on Jordan Algebras and Their Applications. Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Vol. 1710 (reprint ed.). Springer-Verlag. ISBN 3-540-66360-6.

Notability seems to be pretty clearly established. Deltahedron (talk) 18:15, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Sure, if enough of these could be considered secondary resources. Texts are really better. Rational trigonometry is essentially a topic developed by a single person, for which there is exactly one book (published by the person) and against all reason that article persists to exist. This topic I believe is notable though: I would just like to see it proven with good citations. I guess I should take up the task of adding the book citations myself, or else I risk looking unwilling to help with my complaint. Rschwieb (talk) 14:20, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The other book reference I found turned out to be quite good. (So much so I'm considering picking up a copy at the library...) Ideally I would add another, but the remaining hits are kind of in a grey area. Given the number and publishers of the hits I was looking at though, I'm content with these two book references. Perhaps the icing on the cake would be to have some especially strong journal references. Rschwieb (talk) 14:37, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

This seems an unusually and unnecessarily restrictive interpretation of notability. Is it seriously suggested that there is not "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject"? I expect you will have noted that Okubo's definition of a mutation algebra, on page 83, ascribed to Santilli, is the special case of a mutation A(p,q) when q is a scalar multiple of p. That is why I did not use it myself.

On a related topic, in this edit, you "chopped an url to a personal homepage hidden in a book url": the "hidden" url (an oddly pejorative description, it was entirely explicit) is the home page of the author and contains the errata for the book. It seems quite normal to link to such a thing. Deltahedron (talk) 17:20, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Dear Deltahedron:

• Is it seriously suggested that there is not... No, the meaning of "I am content with these" is the exact opposite of that. I said more citations added would be good... do you disagree somehow?
  • Frankly, since all of my efforts have been toward strengthening the article, and I've said I'm convinced the topic is notable, and I haven't threatened the contents or existence of this article at all, I would appreciate it if you rethought the tone of comments like that. We can get along... I know it!
• This seems an unusually and unnecessarily restrictive interpretation of notability Are we reading the same notability page? "Sources" should be secondary sources...[]...multiple sources are generally expected. (Most) math text books are secondary resources. They may draw on articles which themselves range from being primary resources to secondary. I do not think a two-book benchmark is a stringent requirement by any stretch.
  • As I mentioned before in my anecdote, that attitude towards citations has embarrassing results like rational trigonometry. The one or two defenders of that article made exactly the same noises. As far as I can tell, my interpretation of the guidelines is "robust minimalist."
• I don't really know what we ask for in book urls. I can only say a felt a little let-down when the link led to a personal homepage. If you think a book url that don't lead to something about the book's contents is quite normal, put it back in.
• I expect you will have noted No, to be honest I took it for granted from the context of the material that it would be unlikely that the definition differed by much. Even if it isn't the most general definition, supporting a special case supports the general case. I think if you dismissed it for this reason, you're being too restrictive.

Regards: Rschwieb (talk) 20:14, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I think the best way of getting along would be to confine the discussion to whether and how to improve this article. Deltahedron (talk) 21:02, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Dear Deltahedron: I couldn't agree more. So I am going to return to original topic of improving the references. In the meantime, Mathsci sent some suggested references in an email. At the time I didn't know why it was coming directly to me, but after checking I see Mathsci is currently stuck in a penalty box. I'll take a look about adding some of them. I can't guarantee the ones I have my eyes on all use the most general definition, but they still seem relevant and supportive of the topic. Regards Rschwieb (talk) 16:25, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

It would be wise to review WP:PROXYING before making edits at the suggestion of a banned user. Deltahedron (talk) 16:51, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I reviewed it. It obviously does not apply here (I am not doing it at his direction, and the edit is productive, and I have independent reasons for making the edit.) Rschwieb (talk) 20:18, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Glad to hear that, thanks. Deltahedron (talk) 20:22, 9 February 2014 (UTC)