- List of mathematical theories (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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WP:INDISCRIMINATE: This list seems aimed to list all articles having "theory" in their title. It present at the same level some wide areas of mathematics (set theory) and some very specialized method (Iwasawa theory). So, it does not contain any relevant encyclopedic content. D.Lazard (talk) 08:50, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. The nominator is saying that WP:LSC is not satisfied in a meaningful way. Having "theory" included in the title was probably good enough in 2004, when the list page was first created. The list is hardly complete: sieve theory isn't there, for example. While mathematicians recognise as "theory" any coherent area with enough definitions, results and characteristic ideas, this kind of theory is nothing like a scientific theory. So the list may be of little or no help to non-mathematicians. I would suggest first a division by subject headings, such as "theories in topology". I mean, this is potentially a useful list, just as a list of problems or a list of theorems would be, but there should be more explanation and apparatus. Charles Matthews (talk) 09:14, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 10:45, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. For having this article, we must have a sourced definition of the concept of a mathematical theory; the unsourced three lines of Mathematical theory are far to be sufficients. Moreover, in mathematics, some other words are used with a similar meaning, such as "geometry", "algebra", "calculus", and "analysis". For example, projective geometry means "projective-space theory"; commutative algebra stands for "commutative-ring theory", to be compared with ring theory, which deals with non-necessarily commutative rings; integral calculus stand for "theory of integrals"; real analysis stands for "theory of real functions". So, without a reliably sourced definition of the concept of a mathematical theory, this article is pure original synthesis. D.Lazard (talk) 11:00, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, that's a reasonable argument, but I would like to see it on Talk:List of mathematical theories because there is plenty to say. To use your examples, axiomatic set theory is a number of choices of axiomatic theory, while Iwasawa theory was originally "Iwasawa's analogue of the Jacobian", which John Coates renamed, and over the course of half a century became a major subfield of algebraic number theory, which is not an axiomatic theory so much as the study of algebraic number fields. To be really helpful, this sort of information, including the genesis of a theory, should be tabulated. Charles Matthews (talk) 11:29, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]