Talk:Per Enflo

Polish source 1972 for Goose of Mazur

Rozwiązanie podał w 1972 roku, czyli po 36 latach, szwedzki matematyk Per Enflö, który z rąk prof. S.Mazura odebrał obiecaną nagrodę w Centrum im. Stefana Banacha w Warszawie.

http://www.loela.republika.pl/rozne/s_banach/stefan_banach.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.238.174.81 (talk) 16:50, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Major Rewrite Needed!

This entry reads very poorly, and from what I have learned from other bios, needs considerable cleanup. I have begun by deleting a listing of doctoral students which isn't notable (nor documented from a secondary source), and a bullet list of achievments, which reads like a city tourism guide. Every city has a list of sights to see, which doesn't make that city notable. As I get time, I will try and go through this entry and clean it up.Edstat (talk) 14:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I've done a first pass. A major weakness that remains is the lack of secondary sources. Also, there are many unsubstantiated statements.

Also, there remains a lot of material that is not notable. For example, why is it notable that someone competed in a piano competition? I would agree that winning a major competition is notable.

The New York Times sunday magazine discussed Enflo's participation.

That is a good secondary source. The question remains why is it notable?

I'm particularly concerned with the clever way the text is written to simulate a bullet list. A few papers are cited that pertain to "A", a few more to "B", then "C", and even a partial paper is cited! This appears to be a way to make a small contribution, quantitatively, appear to be more important than it really is. Edstat (talk) 14:57, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Which "small contribution" has been made to appear to be more important than it really is"? (Please stop questioning motives.) Please look at the Mathematical Reviews reviews, and you can see that Enflo's contributions have a fan or two. Look what Laurentz Schwartz says in his book on geometry and probability in Banach spaces. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 15:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I am not questioning motives. I am pointing out that the subject's c.v. is apparenlty being broken up into a series of one, two, or three articles on a topic to simulate a bullet list. There are many scientists who have written a lifetime on a cohesive subject, making many and major advances; here it appears that one, two, or three articles are being equated with that.

This is your point of view. The cited articles are described as among the most important in functional analysis in the 20th century, not by me, but by many many people. Look at Rudin's book on Functional Analysis or Halmos's articles or Benyamini and Lindenstrauss, and you can see that the space given to single articles here is justified and standard---not original research by me but convention. (Of course, many other scientists have also had great contributions---e.g. Maurey, Pisier, Beauzamy, Bourgain, Tim Gowers, Lindenstrauss, Pelczynski--- as I note below.) Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:27, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I also deleted images of others, which seem to be here only to increase the notablity of the bio. The two lower images are inocuous, but should also be considered for deletion.

You deleted a picture of Enflo's piano teacher, which was the most relevant public-use image I could find.

Grothendieck's work on the basis problem is essential background to Enflo's work.

Bombieri's relation to Enflo's paper is discussed in several sources, and Bombier mentions Enflo's inequality in his book on diophantine geometry.

Von Neumann axiomatized Hilbert space, and provided the first invariant subspace theorem. These are well known, and obviously relevant (although not essential). Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 15:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, this entry is on Enflo, not on all the important people who influenced him. Perhaps stubs should be started for them if they are notable, and the picture could go there. Otherwise, it creates the impression (which is not questioning your motives) that an Enflo does not stand on his on notablity.

I have tried to boldly edit, and I apologize if I may have left a malformed reference or two.Edstat (talk) 15:10, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I further reviewed "goose" award. It is nonsensical, and it does not meet the Notablity requirement as “a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level”. Even if it was “broadcasted throughout Poland” (to which at least a citation is necessary), the fact A gave B a live duck and it was on the radio is hardly notable. So, I have also deleted it in the body of the text.

The "goose prize" is a famous prize for a fundamental problem in functional analysis. The goose is mentioned in many sources, and a picture of Enflo and Mazur and the goose appears in Saxon, for example. It appears on the popular biography of Stefan Banach, which Google translator is happy to translate into English. The goose is discussed in the biography of Banach:

* Kałuża, Roman (1996). Through a Reporter's Eyes: The Life of Stefan Banach. Translated by Ann Konstant. Birkhäuser. ISBN 0817637729.

Again, the question is does it meet the Wiki requirment that it comes from a National or International organization. Don't confuse the importance of the math discovery with the issue of this being a notable Award. Who won the duck before, and who has won it sense? What are the requirements to be considered for the awards?

I have no problem with a discussion of Enflo's contribution was to the basis problem, but unfortunately, as far as I could tell, nothing in the text addressed it direclty. Someone may want to put that subheading back in who can supply that information and secondary referenceEdstat (talk) 16:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I have done some more general cleanup.

• There was far too much euphoria on this page. I think that is now under control.

What was "Euphoric"?

I am given to understand this is the phrase that refers to adjectives such as "A praised B", where "praise" is "euphoric", and not encyclopedic.!!!!

Praise given to Enflo's papers include "great", "deep", "beautiful", "sensation", etc.---the praise being given by people like Halmos (who worked with von Neumann and was an expert on operator theory), Laurentz Schwartz, Bartle (who wrote much of Dunford and Schwartz), etc. None of these adjectives were quoted here (because I have gone too far to make this an encyclopediac tone, although the praise was merited: An expression of awe is elicited by anybody familiar with 20th century mathematics who considers that Grothendieck spent years on the approximation problem, but only Enflo solved it. Compare Gurney Halleck's expression of awe after the Fremen victory in Dune, "But those were Sardaukar!" But the approximation/basis/Goose problem defeated Banach, von Neumann, and Grothendieck!

• There still are some revisions needed. A prime example is the giving of dates of when something was published. There doesn't seem to be any sequence that requires dates when what was published.

It is standard to give the dates on Enflo's solution of the invariant subspace problem: See Yadav, Beauzamy, Aliprantis and Burkinshaw, etc. Please read Yadav. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 16:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Another prime example is that there seems to be FAR too many headings, subheadings, subsubheadings, use of bold, etc.

• Details on Enflo's (1969) theorem probably should be eliminated.

This is discussed in computer science textbooks and surveys. This result is widely cited. It is discussed by Bourgain, Milman, and ____ in their paper on metric type. Why delete it? Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 15:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• The entire section on Multiplicative inequalities for homogeneous polynomials should probably be cut, especially because Montgomery's simplification moots Enflo.

Montgomery simplified a proof, and didn't publish it, because of Enflo's priority. Montgomery and Enflo and Bombieri and Beauzamy published a joint paper with many beautiful results. Bombieri gives credit to Enflo in his book on Diophantine geometry, and Schmidt notes Enflo's priority. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 15:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• The section on Human Evolution should definitely be cut. What is encylopedic about a "possible explanation?"

Enflo's article on Neanderthals was discussed on the front page of a Sunday issue of one of the two major Swedish newspapers, SvenskaDagbladet or DagensNyheter; in the same issue, it was discussed in an editorial on the inadequacy of Swedish funding for basic research. More importantly, it is discussed by Svante Pääbo, as quoted in this article, before EdStat censored it. Svante Pääbo was quoted in the previously SVD or DN article, and I suggest that Svante Pääbo's opinion outweighs EdStat's. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 14:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Update: Particularly when Svante Pääbo has just published a paper that (reversing a conclusion of a decade of his research on Neanderthals) that concludes that non-African modern humans owe 1-5% of their DNA to Neanderthals --- which is what Enflo (and others had suggested) and what Enflo explained with a simple model. See this week's New Scientist! Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:36, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• Many statements are supported by citations from Enflo or Enflo et al. Secondary sources need to be found or the information should be deleted.

Secondary sources were provided for all previous "citation needed" flags; these secondary sources were removed by Edstat's reversion (for better and for worse). I have restored many of them, and found additional secondary sources for the descriptions of Enflo's results. (I did remove the section on zebra mussels, which is less significant.)

A few details about Enflo's Piano Playing remain based on a concert brochure (on-line link), but the same information is listed in 3 albums of Enflo and Popov listed by Amazon.com; no doubt such information is paraphrased in the culture section of Columbus or Akron area newspapers. Thanks, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 14:23, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

• Care should be given to the Notes section - many are incomplete or malformed.Edstat (talk) 13:37, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

There are so many issues that I'll introduce subsections. I would warn other editors that EdStat has just returned from a two week suspension for sockpuppetry and warnings about attacking the motives of other editors, including myself, for anti-semitism, etc. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 14:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

A number of incorrect and out of context allegations were plead by you and others, and a Wiki admin blocked without investigating. It is part of what to expect here. Let the editors read for themselves. That is a more effective strategy than lobbying.

Doctoral students

According to the mathematics genealogy project, Per Enflo has 20 students and 35 descendants. They used to be listed on the side box under Per's biography; but as of May 18, 2018 they have suddenly disappeared.

"""""""""""""" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Miguel Lacruz Martin (talk • contribs) 21:23, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Notable doctoral students are listed in scientist biography boxes.

Benyamini and Lindenstrauss discuss results of Lövblom and Weston. I don't remember whether they discuss the results of Larsson and Lacruz (but I'll try to check). Reznick's thesis was expanded and published as an AMS memoir that is widely cited in connection with Hilbert's Seventeenth problem and real algebraic geometry, etc.; Reznick is also known to be a mensch who does a great deal of professional service to the mathematical community, from teaching ("Chalking it up") to writing Putnam examinations, to refereeing. Certainly Weston and Lövblom and Reznick are worth noting. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 14:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

You and others argued elsewhere that if the entry is about A, it is inappropriate to discuss A's doctoral students. I have agreed to that principle elsewhere and have edited consistently.

That's not what I argued. I implied that nobody cares about Sawilowsky's students, who's main achievements seem to be doing the kinds of simulation studies that JASA explicitly prohibited until everybody serious got the hint, and in one case a monograph about a painfully dull simulation method that psychometricians write about when they need a paper: Look at my IP if you doubt my judgment!

In contrast, in Enflo's case, the students have achieved something significant, which is discussed in Benyamini and Lindenstrauss (not just in a charitable sentence, but in a statement of a theorem with proofs and discussion of work following the students' contributions).

Finally, Wikipedia infobox guidelines suggest not including students until they have their own article, so Bruce Reznick's link must wait until somebody writes an article on his many achievements. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Images

Humans like images, particularly human faces. ¨

Perhaps so, but if this entry isn't about other people, placing a variety of images of notable people falls under, imho, of what wiki explains should not be done, which is to bolster notability because someone is (academically) related to someone. In other words, the importance of an achiement should (a) stand on its own and not base on who suggested A study the problem, and (b) should be supported with a reliable secondary source, not a picture of B.

I would ask Edstat ( again like other editors have previously) to avoid questioning motives, e.g. with the phrase that images were noted "to increase notability". Grothendieck's work on the basis problem is fundamental to the approximation problem. Bombieri's connection with paper on the invariant subspace problem is dicussed by Yakov, etc., and is credited by Bombieri's recent book on Diophantine geometry. ¨¨¨¨

See above.

I just chopped out most of the images. I believe this makes the article easier to read. I left in the ones which actually depict thing from Enflo's life, although I'm not sure about that photo of the concert hall. CESSMASTER (talk) 23:48, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Your edits look fine. He debuted at the concert hall, and such debuts are considered important for concert pianists, apparently.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Piano

Enflo's piano playing is discussed in the introductory books on functional analysis by Saxe, which gives a biography of Enflo, and by Morrison (briefly). The piano playing is discussed at the end of the article, briefly, for human interest. Being mentioned in a New York Times magazine article suggests notability, more than Edstat's personal opinion.

I don't know what you are referring to. My comment was to delete a sentence that A participated in a competition, which is not notable, (whereas winning might be).

Enflo's piano playing has been covered in the Swedish national media, but I'm not going to waste my time looking in old issues of SVD! Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 14:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Then delete the material! It requires reliable secondary references.

This a biographical article about a famous scientist, whose participation in this event was covered (along with selected other contestants) by the NYT --- usually considered the leading newspaper in the USA, which makes this worth a sentence or two. This is not an article about Enflo's participation in the competition (which would be not notable, I agree), but an article about Enflo, whose piano playing is widely discussed. Also, Please see the discussion that WP memory/storage is cheap (elsewhere, on the Sl. Saw. page). Thanks Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 22:55, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Editing of Edstat

Edstat claims that this article is based on primary sources rather than secondary sources, and questions the notability of many publications, expressing concern that sections are devoted to single papers of Enflo. Most of his questions may be answered simply by examining Pietsch's history:

Correct. Almost all the references are (a) not independent of Enflo, and (b) are not secondary sources. This is not the place for his C.V.

Per Enflo in Albert Pietsch's history of functional analysis and operator theory

Perhaps your point would be clearer if you could document, with page numbers, the points you want to make from this book.Edstat (talk) 17:22, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 16:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, look above where I mentioned that I boldly edited. I may have left a few malformed references, and given the explanations here, I may have gone boldly too far with some deletions. I have no problem with reinserting material that has a reliably secondary source and is notable, and that actually pertains to Enflo.Edstat (talk) 17:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I cited the most important articles. If you have access to Mathematical Reviews, you can see that each cited article is important.

This argument, which you repeat throughout, amounts to original research, which isn't permitted.

It is fine to ask for other editors to add citations to secondary sources, beyond the original articles, but that will increase the length of the article and its scholarly apparatus (and not change the content).

However, by removing the introductory material explaining the context, you have rendered the article less readable and understandable for the public with an undergraduate mathematics education, or who don't live near the Great Lakes or know about the debates about human evolution, which is the audience. Mathematicians who've had a course in functional analysis know about Enflo and don't need to look at this article. The article should be understandable by the public. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. My understanding is the references must be independent, not by Enflo or Enflo et al. The references must be from secondary sources, not primary sources - again, this is not a scholarly exposition - it is an encyclopedia entry. The lenghthy material on unrelated materials does not belong here. I have suggested elsewhere that you make a stub for those areas (if they do not already exist) and redirect. (Based on your concern, perhaps there is an editor who can explain in layman's terms the point in a sentence or two.) Although your point is well taken, I have learned that it is wiki policies that prevail, not whether or not an editor thinks the approach is better.Edstat (talk) 19:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I have added references to independent sources. Surely, you could have easily have added independent references, by simply checking Google Scholar (even if math reviews were unavailable to you), if you wanted to improve the article. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 21:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Your latest revisions are excellent in general. Math reviews are available to me, but that I mentioned I only had done a "first pass". I encouraged other editors to do so. There are a few issues of primary vs. secondary sources that still need to be ironed out, but I think overall this is much improved.Edstat (talk) 22:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for restoring the article, which I had spent days on, and which you edited very roughly in a few hours: I am sorry for responding too roughly.

I shall try to respond to your previous comments and restore what I had thought were consensus edits: Deleting the students (all of whom lack WP articles), providing third party sources, etc.

I am glad that you allowed the restoration of my topic sentence about Enflo, which is just an introductory sentence (and so doesn't need to be a paraphrase). I couldn't think of a similar introductory sentence other than the quote of the "pre-Enflo" and "post-Enflo" dichotomy from Diestel & Uhl (and from Pietsch). This quote seemed and still seems to me to be in very bad taste (imho/pov) for a Wikipedia article (but okay for end of chapter notes from lively personalities like Diestel/Uhl)---particularly given the contributions of Lindenstrauss, Milman, Bourgain, Maurey, Pisier, Beauzamy, Pelczynski, and many other great mathematicians. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Basis problem ?

Edstat removed the section on the basis problem. Now the article reads as though that result follows from the super-reflexive renorming result. Edstat, stop messing with articles if you have no clue as to their topic! (I don't edit articles on scheme theoretic algebraic geometry, etc. for the same reason!) Know your limitations! Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 21:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Ignoring your provactive personal attack, the extraneous overdetailed material on the Basis problem was deleted for the reason stated above and need not be restated here. Feel free to start a stub and redirect to it. Furthermore, it is against wiki policy to discourage editors from editing.Edstat (talk) 22:03, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Please don't abuse the revert rule. Inappropriate material was deleted after your revert. To be clear: The basis problem should and can be included - but it should be restricted to Enflo's contribution based on a reliable independent and secondary source; this is not the place for a historical lesson, the inclusion of images not relevant to Enflo, or the recitation of an Award that doesn't appear to meet the notability standard.Edstat (talk) 22:08, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Other than that, again, your recent edits generally look very good. I still think there are too many headings, subheadings, subsubheadings, etc, which should be considered.Edstat (talk) 22:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Please examine one of the references to the basis problem. It was usually considered the outstanding problem in functional analyis, and it is discussed in the references I gave before, which have pictures of the goose, Enflo and Mazur. I welcome your comments about style and stimulus to revision, but many of your edits have been about technical content, where you lack competence and should not edit---the most egregious being your bravado about the basis problem. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 22:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for further deletion

The Bibliography section makes this look like a rehash of Enflo's c.v. I have seen other bios where they are extensive such as this, but I have seen other bios where it has been argued and decided that only references should be listed, not a biblography (particularly meaning works written by the author). I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other, but before I put in an extensive bibliography on other bios I want to make sure the editor who has dominated the writing of this entry and is trying to managage its revision, and any other editor who cares to voice an opinion, agrees that it is appropriate to do so.Edstat (talk) 22:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Please suggest items on the bibliography whose important you question. (There are other items that are just as important, but they may lack the recognition of these items.)

Actually, it is not a matter of me questioning importance, it is a matter of what I have been led to believed is wiki policy from the Shlomo Sawilowsky page, and I have accepted it as being so: bibliography material must be deleted because it is fluff, euphoric, etc. I'm NOT doing this to make a point - I'm consistenty editing this way on every page I edit, here and elsewhere. Now, if I have misunderstood your directive (as well as smartse and Iulus) from that page, please inform me (without insults). I hope I can change course as rapidly as you have done, on occaision, when you were shown to be wrong on that page.Edstat (talk) 03:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Delete the material on Zebra mussels if you want: IMHO, this material is interesting for the public. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 22:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC) For example, look at a recent issue of American Mathematical Monthly, which chastized an (Oxford University Press) tome on the analytic theory of polynomials for failing to discuss the article with Beauzamy and Wang, whose ideas were thought to be very provocative.

Wonderful editor Professor Boris Tsileron suggested soliciting help on the Mathematics Project Talk page. Most of Enflo's accomplishments are technically challenging, and it would be useful (for you, because I'm tired) to solicit help from mathematicians who are experienced with such articles. Thanks. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 22:47, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh-oh. Did you communicate with Tsileron? Does that mean you are Tsileron?Edstat (talk) 03:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

On a more serious note, ignoring the euphoric description of the Professor, again, please feel free yourself, or have others from the MPT page feel free to improve the segue, without putting in general interest material not related to the subject, images not related to the subject, etc. etc. as discussed at length elsewhere. By all means do so!Edstat (talk) 03:19, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Invariant subspace problem

The recent editing of the section on invariant subspace problems now is misleading. Please revert to the previous issue, to avoid violating the Wikipedia policy about biographies of living persons. I have previously indicated that standard sources are very careful about the chronology --- "It is standard to give the dates on Enflo's solution of the invariant subspace problem: See Yadav, Beauzamy, Aliprantis and Burkinshaw, etc. Please read Yadav." --- and avoid making the phrasing that Edstat has introduced, which speculates about "influence" where no references are given and I am quite certain that no publications have discussed the details that would justify such a claim, if it be true. (Also, Beauzamy was referenced before as being influenced, and now you have removed the influence, which was noted in his book, which is quoted in Pietsch.) This is again very reckless and improper editing. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 22:54, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I can't say I agree with this at all. The info deleted was extraneous. If you believe a very short segue is appropriate, please feel free to do so, as that will edit the flow. But material not relevant (i.e., lengthy historical developments to a problem that predate Enflo) are not appropriate. AGain, if you feel it is that important, why not create a stub and redirect?Edstat (talk) 03:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Neanderthals

The section gave an account of Enflo's joint paper, which explained the result, quoting Pääbo (and coauthors') article. Now there's no explanation of Enflo's contribution. This again was reckless and destructive editing, which should have been proposed here first. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 23:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I can't say I agree with this at all. First of all, we have the continuing problem of primary and non-independent sources. Can you not find this in the New York Times or some other reliable secondary source?Edstat (talk) 03:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Svante Pääbo's paper is a reliable source, which discusses Enflo/Wolpoff/Hawks. (See the comment in Enflo's coauthor John Hawks's blogg under "demographic turnover".) I'll find the Swedish front-page story in a week or so. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 16:28, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

doctoral students

According to the math genealogy database, Per Enflo has 20 students and 35 descendants, and they all should be listed, not just one of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Miguel Lacruz Martin (talk • contribs) 21:42, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Based on the decision at Shlomo Sawilowsky, the doctoral students of Enflo are not notable (although I wouldn't insult them as Keifer.Wolfowitz insults the doctoral students of Shlomo Sawilowsky). Hence, they do NOT qualify to be listed, so please leave them out. Thanks!Edstat (talk) 23:54, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The guidelines for infoboxes recommend that only notable students be included, with notable students being commented out until they have an article of their own. So we have consensus not to include any students for now.

My criterion that doctoral students' achievements be discussed in the leading reliable sources was met by the (Enflo-) students previously mentioned, and not by Sawilowsky's students (and not to the same degree by Sawilowsky, who appears in a sentence or two in Conover and in Hettmansperger and McKean). Reality is not an insult: Edstat's comparison of Sawilowsky to Enflo is as warranted as the comparison of Dan Quayle to John F. Kennedy, imho.Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 00:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, at least on that we agree, because I knew John F. Kennedy, and believe me, he was no Dan Quayle. (Dan would never have led us into the Bay of Pigs!)Edstat (talk) 02:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, I don't know why you only read Hettmansperger and McKean (of which, by the way, the latter had a ASA article based mostly on simply replicating Sawilowsky, and the former developed a test that is more complicated to compute and less powerful than Sawilowsky's) when Sawilowsky is cited in at least 5 dozen current popular college textbooks, etc. etc. You really should consider broadening your reading beyong MathSciNet - it will open an entire world of applied statistics for you.

I would welcome you to contribute to more statistics articles beyond Sawilowsky: If you had, your suggestions (for my remedial reading) might be worth consideration (by me). Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 11:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

You have more non-wiki policies than just about any other editor I have ever come into contact with. Edstat (talk) 12:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

And finally (hopefully), for the nth time, Sawilowsky nor the Shlomo Sawilowsky page ever claimed to be a mathematician. Is it perhaps your frustration that some podunk from a mid-western university has solved some major problems in npar stats as opposed to a mathematician?

I have shown appropriate respect for Wayne State University, e.g. in Wikipedia, by editing the article on Boris Mordukhovich, another world famous mathematical scientist.

Go back and read what you have said about 102 people who hold a Ph. D. or Ed.D from WSU, and then re-think about the meaning of "appropriate respect".Edstat (talk) 12:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Did not Karl Pearson muse at length on the wonder of how [[Gosset] could solve the error of the mean problem being a mere chemist when no mathematician or mathematical statistican could do so?Edstat (talk) 03:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Long ago Charles Sanders Peirce reviewed Pearson's so-called Grammar of Science, which was chock-full of seductive fallacies: "excessively vague and capable of being twisted to support illogical opinions, as they are twisted by [Karl Pearson]". Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 16:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Mazur's goose

Bring back the goose! It seems to have been forgotten that this article is a biography, supposed to cover all aspects of the subject's life, not a CV. The goose award is a quirky and interesting event in Enflo's life. Gordonofcartoon (talk) 16:25, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The goose story is standard in discussions of Banach and functional analysis. I speculate that mathematicians like to mention Enflo's piano playing for similar reasons: It is interesting/"quirky" (although many mathematicians have classical piano training) and suggests something about Enflo's mind --- the way that Emanuel Lasker's chess-playing suggests the working memory and acuity that let him prove the primary decomposition theorem for some Noetherian rings.

Does any other editor want to add something from Mathematical Reviews, etc., describing the complexity of Enflo's counter-examples to the approximation problem and the invariant subspace problem?

(I would like others to contribute more, since I have received criticism for "ownership" and "euphoria" for my edits here.) Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 18:38, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

A more careful reading would show that the issue (now moot) was not about (a) the math achievement or (b) whether something "quirky and interesting" is notable (although if it fails the notable test it has been argued on other pages by Kiefer.Wolfowitz and cohorts it must be deleted). The issue is whether or not if A gave B a bird that constitutes a notable AWARD, which wiki defines as being given by a national/international organization. K.W and cohorts argued elsewhere that a national award given by to a representative in each of its regions is not "national/international" enough; thus the question remains is how does A given B fowl rise to that level?Edstat (talk) 20:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

You keep referring to my discussion on another page: I have no idea what you're writing about. Please reference Wikipedia guidelines --- rather than your understanding (perhaps fallible imho) of my discussion (certainly fallible, even when it exists). Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 21:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Piano and Musician Project

This article is now also part of the biography project for musicians, which has developed guidelines for including information about living performing artists (noted primarily for their music, while Enflo is noted mostly for mathematics). The musician biographies seems to have more musician-reported material than do the WP biographies for academics, I believe. Thanks, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 16:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Musician-project members have started commenting on their talk page. For simplicity, it would be well to keep music-related questions on that page (rather than here). Thanks, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 17:22, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080906201002/http://www.canisius.edu/topos/enflo.asp to http://www.canisius.edu/topos/enflo.asp
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120426050617/http://perenflo.com/sida9.html to http://perenflo.com/sida9.html

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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:49, 4 January 2018 (UTC)