The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Cayley–Dickson construction. Not much to merge, so I'll just redirect this. Tone 14:52, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Trigintaduonion[edit]

Trigintaduonion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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This is an example of the Cayley–Dickson construction applied multiple times. In theory, the construction could be applied an infinite number of times, but the resulting objects are only mathematically significant in the first few cases. We don't need an article on a mathematical concept simply because it is possible to define it. There is no evidence of notability from secondary sources and the article itself simply describes the construction while giving no information that does not directly follow from it. RDBury (talk) 12:23, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. I nominated this for CSD G1 because it's so technical, it's bordering on gibberish. Unless someone writes an accessible introduction, it's not useful for a general audience. --Mblumber (talk) 15:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I have expanded the article somewhat and added reference. Since this algebra has a specific and recognised name, it does merit its own article. The point about technicality and accessibility is a recurring complaint about Wikipedia mathematics articles, but is not grounds for deletion. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:59, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Although true that one can in principle continue to apply the Cayley-Dickson construction infinitely, this seems to be the last notable case. (Of course, there is then the apparent paradox that the sexagintaquaternions would be notable by virtue of being the smallest non-notable such algebra ;-P) Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:24, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. While somewhat obscure, these do seem to appear in the literature. Regarding Mblumber's point about being technical: It's not at the moment much worse than many other math stubs. For a mathematician or math student I think it is acceptable. In the long run it will be made better. Ozob (talk) 16:33, 19 December 2009 (UTC) Merge. I was wrong. Yes, primary sources don't suffice. Ozob (talk) 21:41, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Notability specifies that secondary sources should be used as evidence for notability. Journal article are considered primary sources. So appearance in the literature must include books or survey articles to be acceptable for this purpose. In any case, the references given don't seem to indicate whether they have appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, so your use of the term 'literature' is somewhat loose.--RDBury (talk) 17:35, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have thought that some journal articles would be considered primary sources and other secondary, depending on content. Those that introduce the trigintaduonions or demonstrate new results concerning them would be primary sources. Those that rely on their reading public to be familiary with the trigintaduonions already or that mention them in passing would be secondary. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:36, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Someone mentioned the Cayley–Dickson construction without linking to that article, so here it is. I don't know how far down the sequence you can go and find objects worthy of an article. We have articles on particular four-digit integers that stand out as notable; maybe the same could be said of the 4379th object in this sequence. But some assertion of notability should be there. I agree with Mblumber that more context should have been there, but to say it looked like gibberish is far too extreme; the nature of the topic was clear. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:01, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge into Cayley–Dickson construction or delete. Apparently not notable at all. Appearances in half a dozen research papers are not sufficient for a separate article, and there are no organisational reasons to keep this a separate article. The topic can be much better understood if treated in its proper context. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. Hans Adler 18:30, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep This page is not completely finished, and there is little information on the subject, so it may take a while to finish. Distortiondude 14:19 (EST)
  • I have even expanded it just a little bit, but still, it is not completed. 15:50 12/20/09 (EST) Distortiondude
• Merge into Cayley-Dickson construction. It seems to me that the treatment of this algebra would be enriched by describing its provenance in the Cayley-Dickson construction and comparing its properties to those of other Cayley-Dickson algebras. Plclark (talk) 19:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and redirect to Cayley-Dickson construction. As it stands now, this little stub is a WP:DICTDEF, albeit a mathematical one. Pcap ping 15:53, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Userfy (aka delete) unless a book or survey paper mentions it, as indicated by RDBury above. Google scholar has only 6 hits on the name. (The information that Distortiondude just added to the article shouldn't be there even if the article were to be kept, but I'm not going to remove it.) We don't even know that this is a common name for the concept, even if the concept were worthy of mention in Cayley-Dickson construction. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:10, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge into Cayley-Dickson construction. I too think the notability of these constructions ends with the Sedenions if not the Octonions. --JohnBlackburne (talk) 23:53, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge into Cayley-Dickson construction and redirect. When enough information is available (from enough sources), it might warrant its own article. At this point, though, it seems that this information would be more accessible and appropriate in the aforementioned article. Spiral5800 (talk) 13:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. All the information in the article looks like it's already in Cayley–Dickson construction, so all of the merges above really amount to deletes. Ozob (talk) 16:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.