Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/0/0

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This a rambling discussion of the indeterminate form 0/0, which is quite adequately handled elsewhere. The page has been revived after being redirected to indeterminate form. The style of discussion is not likely to be helpful to anyone studying mathematics. Delete Charles Matthews 09:13, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • Change back to redirect. - Evil saltine 09:18, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • ERROR: division by zero. Revert to redirect. --Ianb 09:32, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Redirect back to indeterminate form. --Chessphoon 11:58, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Nothing plus nothing is nothing, you gotta have somethin'. Go back to redirect. Geogre 13:34, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • "Nothing will come of nothing... mend thy speech a little." (King Lear, I, i). Redirect to indeterminate form and discuss there. Keep; changing vote 17:29, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC); article makes sense now. Antandrus 15:10, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Revert to redirect & protect the page for a few weeks. Wile E. Heresiarch 17:22, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Patent nonsense, revert to redirect. I'm peeved that a perfectly good discussion on indeterminate forms was replaced with something so foolish. Why strive for such mediocrity when excellence is staring you in the face? --Ardonik.talk() 17:47, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
  • Revert. What a mess. — Gwalla | Talk 18:51, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Or, better, redirect to indeterminate form. The language is childish, and I'm not just talking about weird spellings like "oppininions" or "it's self". The author speaks of "solving 0/0". One solves equations. "0/0" is not an equation. The author is not very familiar, if at all, with mathematical jargon -- this is one of those cases where you should learn what the rules are before you break them. The article titled indeterminate form and others already treat the topic. Michael Hardy 23:04, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Redirect to indeterminant form, this stuff is patent nonsense. --Starx 00:10, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Redirect to indeterminant form. No compelling reason not to. Livajo 00:11, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Cleanup, merge into indeterminate form, and redirect. Redirect, because 0/0 is a plausible encyclopedia entry under which someone might look it up. Cleanup and merge because I see a diamond in the rough here. The existing article on Indeterminate form is formal, correct, and written at a college level. And it does nothing to help a nonmathematical person understand the issues. The existing article is confusing because the author does not seem to understand the issue and believes there is a dispute of some kind. This is, however, the common reaction on first considering the meaning of the fraction 0/0. It is further confusing because he includes several different interpretations by people who don't understand 0/0, either. Nevertheless, there could be a good introductory section to Indeterminate form that lays out why 0/0 seems puzzling and why mathematicians resolve it the way they do. One of the barriers to learning is that once one learns the resolution to a seemingly paradoxical issue, it is difficult to regain the naive mindset and therefore difficult to explain the resolution to someone with that mindset. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:33, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC) P. S. I once used a rotary calculator which exhibited very different behavior if you asked it to divide, respectively, a nonzero number, and zero, by zero. If I recall correctly, dividing a nonzero number caused it to run endlessly and created serious danger of the motor overheating and jamming, while I believe 0/0 yielded 1111111111 and then terminated. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:33, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • That's an outstanding idea. Changing my vote from "revert to redirect" to merge and redirect. --Ardonik.talk() 15:37, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
      • Considering that the article as it stands is simply text copied from a math forum and it discusses 0/0 as if it hasn't been "solved" and it implies that it is a controversy among mathematicians (which it is not) as Michael Hardy points out on the talk page, I don't really think that there is much salvageable to merge into the indeterminate form article. Rather, if something less technical is to be included in the indeterminate form article about 0/0, first, it would need to be written from scratch, and second, it should not present 0/0 as an opinion (like this article does), rather describe it factually in terms that are easier to understand. --Chessphoon 00:19, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
        • Also, I think some of the comments on the indetermine form's talk page might be useful to be included in the article as a simpler way of explaining why 0/0 is an indeterminate form, or the article can just remain as it is and people can look at the talk page for that explanation. --Chessphoon 00:26, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Merge & redirect -FZ 14:14, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Veto: redirect to indeterminate form --Merovingian[[Image:Atombomb.gif|]]Talk 22:46, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
  • Merge & redirect - I was going to go with delete and redirect, but User:Dpbsmith has a good point -- Solipsist 07:47, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    One other point. Everything seems to work, but does the title containing a / actually create subpages. -- Solipsist 07:49, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    There is no "< 0" notation at the top of the article so I'm guessing that it's not creating a subpage in this case. Even if it did, it would be a subpage of 0 which redirects to 0 (number), a connection that seems reasonable. Rossami
  • Redirect to indeterminate form. Shimmin 14:07, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)
  • Redirect to indeterminate form and write a section on naive arithmetic into inderterminate form. Barnaby dawson 18:03, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Keep: Have rewritten the article to be more mathematically rigorous but (hopefully) accessible to amateurs. Barnaby dawson 12:44, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Comment: User:24.73.204.67 blanked this page and removed the VfD notice from 0/0. --Ardonik.talk() 19:38, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep as rewritten by Barnaby dawson. Good article now. I don't know where this new material properly belongs; perhaps where it is, perhaps in Division by zero, perhaps in Indeterminate form, perhaps on a new page named Zero divided by zero. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 17:20, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Is it possible to change your vote twice? I think Barnaby Dawson's rewrite addresses all our concerns. I'm changing my vote from merge and redirect to keep (or at least, I will if it's not against the rules.) --Ardonik.talk() 17:26, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
      • Of course. You can change your vote as much as you like. — David Remahl 19:22, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Overall, an excellent rewrite. There are some oversimplifications made, but as it stands the article is definitely a positive contribution. Deepak 19:21, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete; the "excellent rewrite" is not as bad, but is still bad. One could fix the TeX errors (e.g. could be changed to and the ridiculous asterisks could be fixed, etc.), but the thing reads like a secondary-school pupil's examination answer. And why the link to undecidable?? That's absurd! And to philosophy of mathematics? Is there something philosophical here? (Rhetorical question, in case someone wondered; the answer is no.) And why the link to infinitesimal? It's very clumsy and contains nothing that is not treated at indeterminate form. Michael Hardy 21:54, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
... and I just added some specific criticisms on the page itself. Normally I would attempt to fix the page and put those on the talk page, but this page isn't worth saving. In particular, the statement about what an indeterminate form is could not be allowed to stand, even if readers could see the link and the fact that the page is a mess. Michael Hardy 22:11, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
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