Talk:Wikiproofs

I think this idea has potential. But why restrict it to proofs? It seems to me that proofs would mostly be useful in an general encyclopaedia of mathematics.

One could have an article for a theorem or result. The proof could be included if sufficiently short, or put in a separate article, rather like PlanetMath does now.

Then the question is, why can't just all just be in Wikipedia? The chief objection I would expect to hear that a lot of minor results may be mathematically interesting for some reason, but too minor to encyclopaedic. --Saforrest 14:51, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I guess we should think, who would use such a resource? Research mathematicians certainly would not use the resource, since I don't expect major mathematicians to devote their precious time transcribing 300-page papers to wikiproofs. And unless there is a substantial corpus of quite complicated mathematics online, I doubt they will use it.

Mathematics is different from many other disciplines in one way: One does not really understand the motivation, or the essence of a proof unless one is ready to delve into it for an extended period of time, and study the context, and understand how the conjectured theorem suggests itself as a 'natural question'.

Given the above reservations, I do affirm the need to have a universal way of codfying known mathematics, and do it in such an organic way that it accomodates many degrees of detail, alternative proofs, and yet it still sustains organized 'schools' of presenting topics. I.E. something that lets us observe the architecture without diminishing the multiplicty present in different foundational starting points, different ways of stating the same proof, similar ways of stating different proofs of the same theorem, and different notation and so on.

This in the other hand requires tremendous scholarship and sustained attention from people to amount to anything. If the mathematical sophistication cannot / will not exceed the graduate-school level, the true fruit of such a project will not materialize (imho..)

I invite all of you to read the musings of Connes, Grothendieck, Serre etc. (they all happen to be french) on theorizing v.s. 'problem-oriented mathematics'.

DK

I think this is a potentially tremendously interesting idea. Meanwhile I do have to admit that I wouldn't be able to meaningfully contribute or even use this resource. If a group of specialists takes an interest in the idea, it may become viable.

--Igor 12:19, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

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I think this is an excellent idea. It would be valuable not only in its own right, but as a way of improving the documentation in some Wikipedia articles--it is quite cumbersome to include proofs for every single claim in a mathematical article, and yet it is important to have a source for any factual claim. Wikiproofs would serve a purpose analogous to Wikisource in this regard. --Ian Maxwell 17:25, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

This would be very good

I was thinking on this idea from my self. I do Economic Theory, and I think that in many other theoretical sciences we are continuosly using results from mathematics that we know that were prooved, but we do not know where or how. The problem of including it in Wikipedia is that there some vey long proofs, and that not every theorem or lemma is important enough for a general encyclopedia, although it could be ok in a general maths encyclopedia. But in any case, I do not think Wikipedia should include proofs of theorems, but only some very important and easy to understand.

I totally agree on this idea. I think it could be a resource in the spirit of Wikispecies.

(Sorry, I tried to generate an account, but I could not. You can answer me in my discussion page of spanish wikipedia). Ok, now I can sign: --Maltusnet 08:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Great idea

Proofs, theorems without proof, lemmas and definitions. It allow to use hypertext potential. It will be good if not only text will have links but also formulas should have links. (extended MathJax?) It should be in many languages. Borneq (talk) 19:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Adoption of ProofWiki

In fact, such a wiki already exists: ProofWiki, with quite a large amount of content and not-so-bad page ranking (compare PlanetMath, Wikiversity and others), evidence that such a project is of interest. Many of the above difficulties (multiple proofs, multiple definitions, different perspectives, notation, level of detail, proof outlines, foundations) have been formed a consensus on. If you have questions, ask away.

The good news: There are ongoing discussions at ProofWiki on proposing to have the Wikimedia Foundation adopt it as a sister project. If you're interested, have a look and join the discussion. --Bart Michels (talk) 14:07, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

See proofwiki:Talk:Main Page#Adoption by the Wikimedia Foundation --Bart Michels (talk) 14:58, 9 November 2017 (UTC)