Talk:Si.427

Preserve

@Infinity Knighty: Good return of material deleted, afaics, solely in order to make a point. The author himself (who for the record, I do not know and have never heard of until the current brouhaha) has himself attempted to fix an error reported in RS and that was completely overlooked by the remover.Selfstudier (talk) 11:21, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

On the sources

"It is the only known example of a cadastral document from the OB period" is a direct lift from a press release widely copied around the internet. Is there a source for this claim aside from Mansfield, whose work the press release covers? It is a very strong claim, and surely it would have been remarked on in the nearly 120 years since the tablet's discovery, when it was originally classified as being about surveying.

I also fail to see how the citation to the unpublished index of names by Ferwerda and Woestenburg is a relevant citation for the meaning of the number 25,29 — especially when I cannot find that number in their document. The name Sîn-bēl-apli does, and their entire entry reads

"f. Sin-bel-aplim, Ilan-šemea^, Di.680A,10'+seal^ (Si7) (a); Di.700,31+seal (Si21) (a); MHET II,3: 455,27 (b)+A,8" (Si30)"

Without this apparently irrelevant reference to Ferwerda and Woestenburg, I will note without comment that of the 7 remaining references, three are by Mansfield, and one is a news article about his work. I understand that there are tablets of this nature that are very little studied, and so specifics on this one may be rather rare. But surely there are good general sources that could and indeed should be cited, particularly from well-established historians and experts on OB mathematics and tablets. 121.45.89.81 (talk) 05:42, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Just doing a quick Google search for "cadastral tablets ancient babylon" dating from before 2017, I find this 1996 article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3632524, whose abstract includes the sentence "Continuing the author's earlier work on the shape of fields in Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 B.C.), based on cadastral documents from Lagash province in lower Mesopotamia". Ur III is the period immediately previous to OB. At best, the sentence about cadastral OB texts and Si.427 being "among the oldest known mathematical artifacts" is misleading due to the conjunction of the claimed uniqueness and "oldest". It is certainly not the oldest cadastral tablet, from that 1996 article's abstract. Further this thesis: TERRESTRIAL CARTOGRAPHY IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA (https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/4350/1/Wheat13PhD.pdf) tells me that "Over one hundred and seventy maps and plans are preserved from the ancient Near East, drawn on clay tablets or inscribed in stone," and lists ten tablets from the OB period dealing with building and house plans. So perhaps these are not "cadastral", but are at the very least closely related. 121.45.89.81 (talk) 05:42, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

And, lo and behold, the article "Reconstructing the Rural Landscape of the Ancient Near East" from 1996 in my previous comment supplies the quote in section 5, The Old Babylonian Period: "we can use a group of eleven cadastral documents recording properties in the Larsa kingdom...after its conquest by Hammurabi of Babylon". This puts the dating square around the time of Si.427 Further, Figure 12 of that article is titled "Reconstruction of fields from Old Babylonian cadastral texts from Larsa", citing Birot, 1969. Figure 14 gives partitions of family properties, citing Charpan, 1980. So I would strongly support removing the strong claim, based on my half an hour of literature searching that brings up contemporary and older examples 121.45.89.81 (talk) 05:55, 2 September 2021 (UTC).

There are may examples of field plans from the Ur III period, but there are no published field plans from the OB period. The figure you reference is a "reconstruction" based on a list of fields (see https://cdli.ucla.edu/search/archival_view.php?ObjectID=P423884). This is not the same thing as a field plan. Perhaps the term the term "cadastral field plan" should be used to avoid confusion. Daniel.mansfield (talk) 08:32, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Here I quote from an article published in 2020 in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies: "Very few field plans date from Old Babylonian (OB) times. This article analyses one such text, Si. 427 from Sippar...", written by ... Daniel Mansfield. Why the change in tone? Why is this tablet now unique? Personally I would trust the paper refereed by someone chosen by a JCS editor rather than someone chosen by an editor from Foundations of Science, in light of having a look at the contents of the latter journal. 110.142.52.31 (talk) 04:35, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I managed to track down about ten field plans from the OB period, but only Si.427 has been published. Daniel.mansfield (talk) 23:39, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Huh. So these other field plans aren't "cadastral", according to your definition? I'm only asking now out of curiosity, though the relative paucity of field plans from the OB period (compared to Ur III) might be worth mentioning in the page, citing the 2020 paper. 121.45.89.81 (talk) 00:33, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I would definitely call them cadastral field plans. What I said was that none of them have been published. In other words, Si.427 is the only published cadastral field plan from the OB period. Daniel.mansfield (talk) 01:46, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Then I refer you to confer with the learned gentleman quoted at the start of this section: "It is the only known example of a cadastral document from the OB period". It is this fast and loose press-release science that I believe is making this all an issue, here, and is not limited to this one specific aspect. Had the articles analysing Si.427 appeared without the media hype, and then been included into WP, we wouldn't be having the discussion. I understand the university press department probably wouldn't be interested in pushing a version of this story full of the scholarly caveats and details like "only (published) cadastral field survey (out of a bunch of others) in the OB period (though we have lots of even older ones)", and perhaps that is worth reflecting on. 121.45.89.81 (talk) 00:05, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate your efforts in making this page an accurate representation of Si.427. It's kind of interesting that this period of cadastral surveying is unknown when we know so much about surveying techniques from earlier and later periods. This is largely because field plans from this particular period have not been previously studied. Daniel.mansfield (talk) 01:53, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm just trying to get the story straight. Do you still stand by your "only known" comment in the UNSW press release at https://news.unsw.edu.au/en/australian-mathematician-reveals-oldest-applied-geometry ? How are we to get the content of this article settled, when the author of the article giving the analysis seems to take different positions on key facts of the case in different venues? Do we believe the comment about Si.427 being "one such text" (with the further comment here that you know of ten tablets), published in a peer reviewed article in a journal dedicated to cuneiform studies, or a comment saying it's the "only known", in a university press release that is then copied and republished by newspapers? What sort of confidence does that place in the rest of the press release, and the resulting media coverage, compared to the scholarly discussion in the research article?

Where might these ten or so tablets be, Daniel? What museum, and reference if any? 129.127.36.250 (talk) 08:14, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Please keep it classy

This article needs more secondary sources, which has already been signaled on heading of this page. Secondary sources are important part of Wikipedia. However, it is hard to justify the inclusion of insulting tweets, calling the author (who is me by the way) an ignorant and pathetic attention seeker. Aside from being uncivil, such comments are irrelevant since they do not discuss any of the content of this tablet. Secondary sources (both positive and negative) that actually discuss Si.427 include https://twitter.com/viktorblasjo/status/1423417560779853827 by Viktor Blasjo, https://www.kijkmagazine.nl/science/3700-jaar-oude-kleitablet-toegepaste-geometrie/ which quotes Ossendrijver, or https://blogs.ams.org/mathmedia/tonys-take-august-2021/ by Tony Phillips.

Also, the article presently cites the paper 'Three old Babylonian methods for dealing with 'Pythagorean" triangles' to dispute the claim that Si.427 is the first example of the Babylonians using Pythagorean triples in a practical setting. That paper discusses BM 96957, which concludes BM 96957 is an educational text as the evidence "strongly suggests that we are dealing with a reverse algorithm, and speaks against the idea of practical problems based on direct measurement". It's hard to see how this paper demonstrates that Si.427 is *not* the first example of the Babylonians using Pythagorean triples. Daniel.mansfield (talk) 03:55, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

This will get sorted out, I am sure. Please keep contributing here on the talk page as I intend to deal with the opposition at some point, you not being permitted to an all.Selfstudier (talk) 09:50, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I suppose I can summarize my comment as follows: none of the secondary sources provided by David Eppstein dispute the presence of Pythagorean triples on Si.427. Daniel.mansfield (talk) 21:24, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

That detail (whether or not Pythagorean triples can be found if one squints hard enough) is so far from the actual point of adding those sources that I can only imagine you are deliberately engaging in red herrings. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Please keep this about secondary sources, and not what you imagine. Daniel.mansfield (talk) 00:18, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Inclusion of tweets is not appropriate, poor quality edit. Infinity Knight (talk) 18:24, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

They meet the criterion in WP:SPS of being by an "established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". —David Eppstein (talk) 19:39, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: you're missing the point. While those "sources" might as well be technically citable, there is a matter of editors discretion regarding inclusion. Twitter is not an appropriate medium for encyclopedic content. Subpar sources should not be included. Infinity Knight (talk) 06:11, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

On average, Twitter might be an open sewer, but it does have its uses, a direct line to experts being one of them. The instances here are fine, per WP:SPS. XOR'easter (talk) 15:44, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: repeats reliability claim missing the point that this inclusion condition is required however, it is not sufficient. I do not think that an encyclopedia based on "tweets" could be the desired idea. There must be better sources out there, both as far as medium goes and secondary sources could be nice. There is no need to compromise on quality. Infinity Knight (talk) 07:14, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

If you know of more in-depth publications by established historians of Babylonian mathematics independent of Mansfield and evaluating the claims in and about his work, suitable as replacements for these sources, then by all means provide them. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:36, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

If no high-quality sources are found, gossip style content should be removed. Infinity Knight (talk) 07:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

We have no "gossip style content". What we have, that you want removed, is the only comments available to us evaluating these claims by established historians of Babylonian mathematics. Your desire to expunge any such evaluation from the article is noted, but not appropriate for an encyclopedia. If you want hyped-up claims without the criticism, some other web site may be a better choice. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:55, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

Any scholarly sources by those or other established historians? Please kindly stop discussing me and concentrate on the content. Infinity Knight (talk) 08:00, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

There is another established historian commentary below, anyway there is obviously a difference between a scholar putting his name to a peer reviewed paper and a tweet, that should be made clear. Blasjo already backed off a bit when confronted by Mansfield. What I find fascinating is the theory that every science/math journalist in the press over dozens and dozens of articles are mere dupes fooled by Mansfield. Ridiculous idea.Selfstudier (talk) 10:41, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

It's not at all clear that "science/math journalists" were the ones doing the writing. Newspapers farming out silly season stories to generalists with no particular relevant experience is not an extraordinary event. Nothing ridiculous about it at all. It's a low-stakes story on a topic where they have little or no experience checking claims. Of course standards aren't going to be great. XOR'easter (talk) 17:47, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

So clearly no consensus for tweets inclusion. I am OK with being skeptical, however such skepticism should be backed up by reputable sources. Infinity Knight (talk) 19:19, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

There's no consensus against it, either. The sources are reputable, because the people are reputable. Rather more so, in this case, than newspapers that did nothing but rewrite the press releases they were given so they could earn some easy clicks. XOR'easter (talk) 20:06, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

https://twitter.com/maanow/status/1429594352695787522 I guess the MAA has to be criticized as well, does it? Also here Mansfield response to Blasjo who appears to yield somewhat.Selfstudier (talk) 22:17, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the MAA (or rather, whichever intern has the job of seeing "news" about math and tweeting it) should be criticized. As the very first reply to that tweet actually does. XOR'easter (talk) 15:49, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

This comment from "Assyriologist Mathieu Ossendrijver" is interesting:

The author has shown that on Si.427 Pythagorean numbers are used to generate rectangles with perpendicular sides. As far as we know, this is indeed the first example of such a field calculation in which this is done. It is certainly not the first proof of applied geometry, because (approximate) surface calculations of various geometric figures have been found long before this tablet, which result in Pythagorean numbers without the construction of perpendicular lines. Moreover, apart from this tablet, there is virtually no evidence that this was or became a common Babylonian practice. [According to Ossendrijver, the clay tablets Si.427 and Plimpton 322 are therefore strange.] That is different from other Babylonian mathematical practices, which apprentice scribes learned from their master, and which have therefore left their mark in many places in Mesopotamia in the form of tablets of school exercises or tablets of the practice of surveying.

Selfstudier (talk) 09:23, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Nice pic here for the interested https://blogs.ams.org/mathmedia/tonys-take/ Selfstudier (talk) 09:33, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Edit warring

The current edit warring is unseemly. It seems that there is in fact not a dispute over the section that is attributed to Mansfield, provided both sentences are attributed to him. I don't think attribution is necessary myself but I wouldn't object to it. The other disputed section is about criticism of the alleged media hype around the announcement, I would not object to that either provided it is not improperly mixed together with criticism that is unrelated to Si.427. Comments? Selfstudier (talk) 21:44, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

My positions are (1) if we include a sentence that the tablet included Pythagorean triples, then this sentence must be phrased as an opinion of Mansfield rather than as a statement of fact (phrasing that cites Mansfield and then states declaratively that the tablet included Pythagorean triples is insufficient to make this point), (2) if we use any non-scholarly source about Mansfield's work on Si.427, such as the Guardian article currently in the article, then that must be balanced by scholarly critique of the media hype of this work, which can reasonably mention (if sourced) Mansfield's participation in previous media-hype situations, and (3) if we do not include any of these non-scholarly sources, and merely focus on the technical description of what is on this tablet rather than its interpretation, then notability of this tablet is in question; it is only the media hype that makes it notable, because otherwise we have only Mansfield's primary work and a citation by Mansfield to a footnote in an offline book source. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:10, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

All three of those points sound reasonable to me. I'd particularly underline the poor wiki-notability case; if all we had were the material that existed prior to the churnalism engine going to work, then this tablet likely wouldn't merit a stand-alone article. XOR'easter (talk) 22:58, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Plimpton has an article of its own as as well so notability is not in question. I have put together and edited in something that could perhaps be acceptable. It attributes the claims made to Mansfield, puts all the material together in one place and attempts a summary of the counterclaims and controversy. Note that like or dislike of the author does not enter into this, Mansfield is also an "expert" and experts in subjective areas frequently disagree, we should not ourselves take a position on which of the experts might be right, merely report the disagreements with due weight.Selfstudier (talk) 10:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Plimpton 322 has been studied and commented upon extensively for decades; I don't think the situation is really comparable. Even with the recent expansions, this page still feels like it would fit better as part of a larger whole, like Babylonian mathematics. XOR'easter (talk) 15:44, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The latest paper has Plimpton 322 in the title, the "discovery" of Si.427 is an extension/explanation of the previous work so there might be a case for including it in the Plimpton article if anywhere. Then again I see no harm in it being separate for the time being.Selfstudier (talk) 16:00, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The language about "peer-reviewed paper" and "tweeted dismissively" puts the thumb on the scale; the footnotes already indicate where everything came from, and we shouldn't implicitly disparage an expert's take just because of the website they happened to use to publish it. (Frankly, stressing that a paper is "peer-reviewed" is a hallmark of crackpot writing: one emphasizes that the paper claiming a COVID cure, free energy, or faster-than-light space travel was peer-reviewed, neglecting to mention that it appeared in a journal better known for studies of soil chemistry. If a journal can't find or doesn't bother to find reviewers competent in the specific subject at hand, the "peer review" they provide is going to be pretty worthless. So, I have grown something of an antipathy against seeing "in a peer-reviewed paper" in article text. I can't remember a time when it was ever a good thing, and I'd advise avoiding the "protest too much" effect by leaving it out here.) XOR'easter (talk) 16:01, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't see anything disparaging, the language is factual and contains no opinion. As I noted earlier, there is a difference between a peer reviewed paper and a short tweet on the internet, the simplest way to highlight that is to state it. The quality of the journal is not in doubt so that is irrelevant. And I would bet $ that if it wasn't peer reviewed you would be somewhere at the front of the line pointing that out (as would I).Selfstudier (talk) 17:06, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The choice of what facts to present as relevant creates an impression, even when the facts are stated in a level tone. It would be equally factual to say "In a 2021 paper in Foundations of Science", for example, and instead of "tweeted dismissively" we could write, e.g., "Robson and Viktor Blåsjö commented online to dismiss the claim that the tablet represents the origin of applied geometry". I would, actually, doubt the quality of Foundations of Science, in so far as I don't see any indication that they have substantial experience in archaeology or the early history of mathematics. Their focus is the philosophy of physics, and what do philosophers of physics know about cuneiform? That's not a judgment on the paper, only that I wouldn't personally trust the refereeing process to have been well-informed. If the paper hadn't been peer-reviewed at all, yes, that would be worth pointing out, because it's bad for people to accept too readily results that haven't been vetted. For the same reason, it is also bad to create the impression that "peer-reviewed" is the same as "definitive". Plenty of readers don't know that those are very far from being the same thing. XOR'easter (talk) 20:22, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Well, I am not the author of the word "dismissively", I believe that was your fellow dissenter, I just copied it. I am not bothered about the precise wording as long as it is clear that it is tweet versus journal/paper which I and I think most people would view as an important distinction, just look at the wording of the tweets and compare them to the more measured tones from people who are writing stuff down. That's one reason and there are others why we distinguish between them here at WP. If you want to opine about peer review, I suggest you do it at Peer review. If you want to complain about the journal or query its efficacy, RSN is thataway, good luck with that.Selfstudier (talk) 21:28, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with "dismissively" (my suggestion had "to dismiss", after all). My concerns lie elsewhere. I'd open a query about Foundations of Science at RSN if I thought it were used across enough articles to be worth discussing in general, but I doubt it is. As for the tone of the tweets, well, it's not unlike what gets tossed around during academic peer reviews sometimes.... XOR'easter (talk) 22:15, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

A sentence claiming a result published in a journal called "Foundations of Science" is disingenuous, since the casual reader has no context that the journal is much less impressive than it sounds. Moreover, putting "of the University of New South Wales" is odd, and reads like newspaper copy (which, indeed, this particular bit basically is...), and moreover looks like trying to boost the status of Mansfield as a researcher in the mind of the casual reader (I'm also not sure if this conforms to WP style or not).

Further, the direct quote "Si.427 is about a piece of land that’s being sold" is not from the research paper (which, really, is not at issue here, but the media hype that contains the actual contentious claims). So the sentence In a 2021 paper in Foundations of Science,[1], Daniel Mansfield from the University of New South Wales, claims that "Si.427 is about a piece of land that’s being sold"... is outright false. The rest of the sentence (the appearance of Pythagorean triples) is not so much a claim as a fact, but the way in which this is presented is the important thing: interpreting as evidence of use of Pythagoras' theorem is what is not novel (cf Robson).

It seems to me that the leading section is getting too weighty. One can summarise the facts much more baldly, and have a discussion about the media show further down. Certainly the profile of Si.427 as a mathematical artefact has been raised by the press coverage here, much more than if some quiet, solid articles had been published (like Mansfield's J Cuneiform Studies article) without hype and pushing by a press office. 121.45.89.81 (talk) 01:44, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Your account seems very much like a single purpose account, you are an IP user, you have very few contributions to WP other than for this article. Is there some special motivation for you here? Selfstudier (talk) 09:55, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

I have other contributions here and there on WP, under other raw IP addresses, and even a logged-in account that I am not currently using, I am a mathematician, and I care about mathematics communication. I am also not in favour of research (be it mathematics, or experimental sciences) being hyped by media staff at universities that cannot critically judge whether what they are pushing is reasonable by research community standards, or not. One would hope that looking to help WP articles be accurate and unbiased does not require a long edit history and to be logged in at the time. One might have many possible reasons for not attaching contributions to an identifiable account. As I hope my other discussion points here show, I am trying to get to the bottom of the facts, which have been a little rubbery IMHO. 121.45.89.81 (talk) 10:15, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

That's fair enough, I guess, although using an IP account for a single purpose is frowned on, if not against the rules as such. Your edits would carry more weight were you using an established account. Original research is not permitted so while expressing an opinion on a talk page is OK you can't carry it over to the actual article unless that opinion is backed up by reliable secondary sources. In other words, the "facts" in a WP context are those reported by reliable secondary sources, not what we might think they are.Selfstudier (talk) 10:37, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

oh, absolutely, I agree with all that. And while I certainly I don't think anyone was taking a university press release as a suitable secondary source, the page kept getting material added that seems to me like regurgitation of stuff from newspapers simply quoting the press release, so I've tried to rework that material. And while the page is not going to cite Mansfield here in the talk page admitting there are multiple extant (though unpublished) tablets, it should give editors pause before uncritically re-using some of the statements made by him in the press piece. 121.45.89.81 (talk) 10:57, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

I understand that but it is usual for the press (whom we usually consider as rs, WP:NEWSORG) to quote from press releases and from authors, politicians, whoever, they do that all the time. I really have a problem with this idea that literally dozens of these sources are nothing more than dupes and all are guilty of media hype because someone tweeted that on the internet. I don't believe that at all. You picked out one quote from one source (The Guardian), why? Are you going to go through all of them and pick out things that they said as well? They are not all saying the same things. A case might be made (centrally, not in this article) that for science/math articles, WP should only use academic sources but in that case, you would have to accept Mansfield's paper as one such.Selfstudier (talk) 11:08, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

As WP:NEWSORG says, Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics. Press releases from the organizations or journals are often used by newspapers with minimal change; such sources are churnalism and should not be treated differently than the underlying press release. I see no reason why general-interest newspapers should be regarded as particularly good sources for the doubly-specialized subject of mathematics intersecting with archaeology. And we're not worried about hype because some random person on Twitter had a complaint, we're concerned because of expert opinions voiced by people who are in all likelihood among the most qualified in the world to say so. XOR'easter (talk) 17:54, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Ahem, there is a tag on top of the article asking for secondary sources, what do you think they are? I already said that I do not believe that dozens of independent sources across the globe are engaged in churnalism, some of them might be but not all. Your expert opinions are short tweets, one about the supposed media hype (in response to a tweet coming from the Economist about Mansfield's claims) and another containing what amounts to a personal attack (remember also that your main expert, to the extent that she accepts any of Mansfields's claims, is in effect doing her own prior research no favors, I am not saying that is her principal motivation but it could be) I supplied a proper secondary source from an expert who made considered commentary about the paper itself. And it confirmed that normals were constructed (unusually), do you have an explanation yourself as to how (and why) they did that?Selfstudier (talk) 18:18, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

It's not "supposed" media hype. The headline claims about "the origin of applied geometry" were hype, no two ways about that. And it's far easier to have "dozens" of sources when they each just rehash what the university gave them. How many of those sources contained even a token quote from an expert "not involved in the study"? Vice? No. Smithsonian Magazine? No. The Guardian? No. XOR'easter (talk) 03:35, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from but the "applied geometry" thing is in many ways the least interesting part of all this, I would even go so far as to say it is uninteresting other than to mathematicians. Pretty sure the average joe is not really au fait with the intricacies of math terminology which often have meaning beyond the words themselves. It is unsurprising that they have no expert quoted, we have been looking and so far have precisely one expert who engaged with the actual content of the paper (unless you count "seems fine" in a tweet as engagement).Selfstudier (talk) 09:28, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

I have blockquoted to show what was actually written by the expert and yes he does say he is sceptical about the trig claim but the other points are plus to Mansfield case and point up the difference between the schoolboy tablets of another expert and Si.427.Selfstudier (talk) 23:26, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Robson

Couple of concerns:

1. ... it demonstrates that the Babylonians of that time knew of the Pythagorean theorem is cited to the paper, however the word theorem is not used by the paper. Not sure the paper's claim is reflected correctly. IMHO the paper's claim regarding Si.427 is about land surveying or applied geometry.
2. Robson 1997 paper, though mentioned in the tweet, does not mention Si.427 so citing Robson 1997 directly might be WP:OR.
3. Finally, the Robson objection it has long been known... reads as if Mansfield paper ignores Robson work. However the paper cites the following papers, and also quotes her. Maybe this point should be clarified.

• Robson, E. (2000). Mathematical cuneiform tablets in philadelphia part 1: Problems and calculations. SCIAMVS, 1, 11–48.
• Robson, E. (2001). Neither sherlock holmes nor Babylon: A reassessment of Plimpton 323. Historia Mathematica, 28, 167–206.
• Robson, E. (2002). Words and pictures: New light on Plimpton 322. American Mathematical Monthly, 109, 105–120.
• Robson, E. (2008). Mathematics in ancient Iraq: A social history. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Share your thoughts... Infinity Knight (talk)

I'm pretty sure you're right about point 1. Mansfield's most recent paper spends a lot of time on Pythagorean triples, but I don't see where it talks about the Pythagorean theorem itself. (I haven't read it in depth, however, so I'll let other people confirm.) About point 2, I don't think it's original research if Robson tweets that she has a relevant discussion in one of her books and a Wikipedia editor then locates that discussion and uses it in an article. Can you say, however, which tweet you mean? I see a tweet where Robson mentions a 1999 book, but I'm not finding any tweet mentioning a 1997 journal article. If you mean the one that mentions the 1999 book, then I think her point was not about Si.427 but about how far back Mesopotamian land surveying goes and about the degree to which other scholars have looked at this. Also, I don't think the objection is that Mansfield doesn't cite Robson in his paper; it's that he omitted mention of earlier evidence and other scholars' work when talking to the press, which had the effect of making his work seem more groundbreaking than it actually is.

In response to your point 1, I think that several sentences from the "Recent controversy" section should be deleted. Since the sentence in the first paragraph that begins "Mansfield claims that…" appears to describe a claim Mansfield hasn't made, it should be deleted; the sentence in the second paragraph that begins "According to expert Eleanor Robson…" should also be deleted since it describes a counterargument to this nonexistent claim. It is true that many "journalistic" sources made a big deal about the Mesopotamians knowing the Pythagorean theorem, as if it were a new discovery. To the extent that there's a debate about this, it seems that the argument is with lousy journalists and not with Mansfield. But I don't think that debate needs to be aired here.

Another minor nit: "Recent controversy" makes little sense. The paper is recent, so the controversy is, of course, also recent. In ten years time, if this article survives, neither the paper nor the controversy will be recent. Will Orrick (talk) 05:09, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Please restore my post to its original form. The way things are interleaved, even I find it difficult to determine who wrote what. Will Orrick (talk) 13:21, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Done.Selfstudier (talk) 13:35, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Will Orrick (talk) 14:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The problem here is that ever since this discussion (re Pythagorean triples) was initiated (not by me), there has been a persistent effort (I actually don't really understand why, it seems as an almost visceral dislike) to disparage Mansfield's claims, his paper as well as all the secondary rs. So if his paper is no good and the rs are no good , what is left? The claim is then that only expert opinions count but we are talking about a paper that hit the headlines in August so how many of those are there going to be at this point? That's probably why the Robson 97 paper (which has the consensus at the moment but is by no means universally accepted so Krauss is not alone in his opinion there) is dredged up as evidence that Mansfield's claims are all trot. I found so far two "expert" opinions about the actual content, as opposed to what appear to be attack tweets. I do have my own opinion about this paper but my opinion does not count and nor does that of any other WP editor in that respect (other than as OR), thus the secondary sources tag.Selfstudier (talk) 09:17, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree that we should not state in WP voice what we (WP editors) think Mansfield's paper says but restrict ourselves to quotes from it although even the selection of said quotes is as well arguably OR. This is the abstract:

"Plimpton 322 is one of the most sophisticated and interesting mathematical objects from antiquity. It is often regarded as teacher’s list of school problems, however new analysis suggests that it relates to a particular geometric problem in contemporary surveying."

Hardly contentious at all, that.Selfstudier (talk) 09:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

What is it that is "hardly contentious"? And do you mean it ironically? Sorry for missing the point.

Re the lack of expert sources, I think there's a good argument to be made that it's premature for Wikipedia to have an article about Si.427. Wikipedia so far has very few articles about individual tablets—even very famous ones are missing. This one, I think, can wait until we know more about its true significance. Another thing: I feel more confused than illuminated after reading the article in its current state. It's not so much that the subject matter is controversial; it's that I can't even tell what the controversial claim is, or on what basis it was made. That would be another argument for holding off on this article.

The thing about experts like Friberg, Høyrup, Robson, Proust, etc. is that they've paid their dues: they've spent lots of time translating many tablets, sometimes whole coherent collections of tablets. This kind of experience gives them the lay of the land: what's anomalous and what's not; which hypotheses are consistent with the general body of evidence and which aren't. That's what makes them experts. When a new argument is put forth, journalists and scientists who don't have this experience are not in the same kind of position to assess. However sympathetic I might be to Mansfield's hypothesis, I have to take the views of the experts seriously.

I'm not sure why Robson's 1997 paper keeps getting mentioned, or how it even came up in the first place. If the discussion is about the purpose of Plimpton 322, that's in Robson's two papers from 2001 and 2002. Is anyone (Mansfield included) seriously claiming that there's some controversy about Mesopotamian knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem? If not, what's the relevance of the 1997 paper? Even if so, there's no reason to single out this 1997 paper (which is more about Heron's approximation than the Pythagorean theorem). There are many other papers, some of them decades older, saying similar things. I thought the controversy was about the use of Pythagorean triples in land surveying, not about the Pythagorean theorem. Will Orrick (talk) 16:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

There are mentions of prior research in the paper itself, I don't think it unusual that Mansfield in interview would fail to mention that unless directly questioned about it. Perhaps the blame there lies with the UNSW press release rather than Mansfield.Selfstudier (talk) 09:17, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

@Will Orrick: is correct saying above what's the relevance of the 1997 paper? and the controversy was about the use of Pythagorean triples in land surveying, not about the Pythagorean theorem. Any thoughts on how to fix it? Infinity Knight (talk) 11:52, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

The relevance of the paper is to demonstrate that the Babylonians of that time and place were well aware of Pythagorean triples, and that modern Assyriologists have been well aware of that knowledge for over a century, countervailing any claims by Mansfield or Mansfield's publicists that the purported knowledge of Pythagorean triples demonstrated in this tablet is a new historical observation or a new high-water-mark for how old this knowledge might be. Obviously. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:14, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: if Mansfield denies that modern Assyriologists have been well aware of Pythagorean triples in OB the paper is not a good reference for that. Could you qoute the relevant paper's part for the it demonstrates that the Babylonians of that time knew of the Pythagorean theorem? Infinity Knight (talk) 02:01, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Are there any Pythagorean triples in that paper? The title is 'Three Old Babylonian Methods for Dealing with "Pythagorean" Triangles"'. I admit I only read it quickly, but it seems to mostly be about computing the length of the hypotenuse using rules similar to c = a+b²/(2a), where b is the short side. Since these are approximation schemes, it doesn't seem that exact triples are likely to come up and I didn't run across any in my quick reading. There are plenty of other references going back to Neugebauer and perhaps earlier attesting to both the exact Pythagorean rule and to Pythagorean triples; this particular paper seems a strange choice.

Also if neither Mansfield nor the UNSW Newsroom have actually claimed that this tablet is the first evidence of Old Babylonian knowledge of the Pythagorean rule or Pythagorean triples, then does the article even need to dispute that claim? (I know some newspapers and magazines did print claims like that, but we aren't going to be citing those kinds of articles anyway.) Will Orrick (talk) 03:57, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Since this edit summary may be partly directed at me,

"the long knowledge of Pythagorean triangles is directly relevant because Mansfield claimed that his work newly discovers that they new this. Spell out the connection since obviously some editors find this point difficult to understand",

my question is not about whether this rebuts the claim—of course it does; it's about whether and where the claim was made. Is it possible to trace the claim either Mansfield? Failing that, does it appear in the UNSW press release? If some random newspaper reporter or headline writer said it, I think it unfair to pin it on Mansfield. (To be clear, I'm as disappointed in the absurd press coverage of this story as anyone—and it's likely that Mansfield is largely to blame for that—but that's not relevant to whether he made this specific claim.) Will Orrick (talk) 02:16, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

See the earlier sentence in our article it demonstrates that the Babylonians of that time knew of the Pythagorean theorem, sourced to Mansfield's "Plimpton 322: A Study of Rectangles". I can't find that claim in Mansfield's paper itself, and the press release [1] doesn't outright state that this is the first time we've known of the Pythagorean theorem or Pythagorean triangles from this time period, but it heavily implies it, with quotes like “The discovery and analysis of the tablet have important implications for the history of mathematics,” Dr Mansfield says. “For instance, this is over a thousand years before Pythagoras was born.” and Nobody expected that the Babylonians were using Pythagorean triples. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:54, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: the press release does not say it either. The last quote is cut mid-sentence: ... Babylonians were using Pythagorean triples in this way, reading the source, the claim is about land surveying or applied geometry as stated above. Infinity Knight (talk) 13:34, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Given that Mansfield has contradicted his own press release (see discussion above about this tablet not being not the unique one of its kind after all), I'm not sure I put much stock in the press release. If this page only referred to the published research, and then had a minor mention that the tablet rose to prominence due to a press campaign, then I'd be happy. 115.64.100.121 (talk) 10:04, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

The paper itself is actually not that controversial, Si.427 makes it's first appearance on p23 of a 29 page paper principally about Plimpton 322 and is just used to support a position on Plimpton. This is where the press release (not actually Mansfield's press release, the University's, although obviously Mansfield made some contribution) has gone wrong it goes on and on about Si 427 which does not even appear as a section heading in the paper. If we are not permitted to discuss the content directly and the majority of secondary sources are considered as churnalism we are a bit stuck for now, just have to wait and see.Selfstudier (talk) 10:54, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: made a poor quality edit and later noted I can't find that claim in Mansfield's paper itself here. A fix should follow. Infinity Knight (talk) 18:30, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Personal attack and tendentious mischaracterization of events, and misleading truncation of what I actually said noted. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:46, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: hope you're well. Respectfully, I am discussing your edits and not you. You have added content and used the following source. You were requested to provide a quote from the relevant paper's part and failed to do so. This is not a personal attack. Any issue with making sure WP:V is satisfied? Infinity Knight (talk) 10:31, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

With respect, you are wrong and not even trying to understand why you are wrong. The claim was about Mansfield, not about one specific paper of Mansfield. And I did find instances where material connected to Mansfield, specifically quotes by Mansfield in a press release from Mansfield's employer, strongly implied exactly what I said. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:40, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: I do not see a thing about strongly implied in WP:V, which is required for inclusion. More to the point I do not think that Si.427 is an appropriate place to discuuss what Mansfield ot his employer implied strongly or otherwise. The page should concantrate on what scholary sorces say about this arifact. Infinity Knight (talk) 22:43, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

If so, then Si.427 is not notable at all, because we have only Mansfield's new primary sources and in-passing references in earlier work. If it is notable, its notability comes from the media hypestorm, not the scholarly sources alone. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:18, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: That's fine, open a new discussion at WP:AFD, there was also a merge suggestion. I am neutral on those. To the point, even if you are sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it. Infinity Knight (talk) 23:28, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

The concerns above should be fixed. Infinity Knight (talk) 07:36, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

I would not object removing the gossip style poorly sourced section 2021 controversy, since it is tangentially relevant to Si.427. Infinity Knight (talk) 16:55, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree that that section is problematic, and that deletion would be for the best. But then nothing would remain but a bare-bones description of one among thousands of Old Babylonian tablets (most of which do not have their own Wikipedia articles). In my opinion, deletion of the entire article is the best course of action, and I have initiated a discussion of this at WP:AFD. Will Orrick (talk) 15:09, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Krauss

"Surely this earlier culture had not developed geometry as a mathematical discipline."

Such weasel words... He should have done a modicum of research or checked with experts to make a real statement. Given that this is not his area of expertise, should we be citing Krauss as an authority for this idea? 114.30.106.243 (talk) 00:17, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Krauss is certainly not reliable on this topic. His article is an opinion piece—science and mathematics good, myth and fable bad—and has very little of substance to say about Mesopotamian mathematics. I think it will be fatal for Wikipedia if we get in the habit of treating writings of famous people in areas other than their own as expert sources.

In addition to the problematic line you mention, there are serious errors in Krauss's article which suggest that no research or fact checking was done. There's this, for example: "Babylonian knowledge of such triples does not take away from the significance of Pythagoras’s beautiful mathematical generalization." This indicates that Krauss believes that the Mesopotamians knew some triples associated with right triangles, but not the general rule, which is false—the history section of Wikipedia's Pythagorean theorem article contains four footnotes quoting experts stating the contrary. (It also suggests that Krauss is unfamiliar with the past half-century's worth of scholarship on Pythagoras.)

Krauss also states that Plimpton 322 contains the 5,12,13 and 8,15,17 triangles, which it does not. The first thing anyone who looks into Plimpton 322 realizes is that the triples are big—there's no way they were obtained by trial-and-error; only some sort of algorithm could have produced them. The only "small" triple that appears is the (rescaled) 3,4,5, triangle. Anyone who knows about Pythagorean triples knows the 5,12,13 triple, and, I think, is initially surprised by its absence from Plimpton 322. This suggests that Krauss has never actually looked at Plimpton 322. He also says, "Yet, presumably by trial and error, motivated by the need to solve a real-world problem that presumably had become acute, the Babylonians had learned what works." I can't imagine that any expert agrees with this.

Incidentally, if one investigates further, one learns that the entries of Plimpton 322 are arranged in descending order according to ratio of short side to long side, or equivalently, according to ratio of short side to hypotenuse, with the top entry close to the maximum possible (1/√2) and the bottom one a bit above 1/2. This explains why the 5,12,13 and 8,15,17 triangles aren't there—they're simply out of range. But Krauss knows nothing about any of this. Will Orrick (talk) 01:56, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

RSN is the place to ask whether Krauss is considered good for his attributed opinion in this case, it is sourced, fully attributed and Krauss is a notable theoretical physicist as well as author. Meanwhile personal opinions about Krauss are out of place here and one should be careful since he is a living person.Selfstudier (talk) 08:56, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Quillette is listed as "generally unreliable" for facts at WP:RSP, which is consistent with the lack of fact checking in Krauss's piece. Of course he's being quoted for his opinion. But do you really want to quote an opinion based on "facts" that aren't actually facts? Will Orrick (talk) 16:45, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

It's an opinion by an expert, he's good for that. There is no reliance on Quillete for any facts (and I would note that all the rs that are supposedly reliable for facts are also not being accepted by editors here while tweets are considered fine, duh).Selfstudier (talk) 17:03, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Since an editor has reverted it, asserting that it is "a junk source", I have asked for an opinion at RSN.Selfstudier (talk) 17:31, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Reverting

I see we have yet another revert, alleging "synth" (of what with what is unclear), the pro Robson synth is fine, though, no problem there. Three sources saying that the homework theory is not all there is, I can wait:)Selfstudier talk) 21:18, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

"the purpose of Plimpton 322" has been the object of much back-and-forth in academic publications and is entirely off-topic here. Any content on its purpose belongs on the Plimpton 322 article, and using this article as a stealth WP:SOAPBOX is completely inappropriate. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:25, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Mansfield's paper is entitled "Plimpton 322: A Study of Rectangles" and the abstract is as I quoted above so I beg to differ not that I expect you to pay any attention. Time will tell.Selfstudier (talk) 21:28, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Redirect target

The redirect target per the AfD close was Plimpton 322. Now it has been changed to Sippar with edit comment "Retargetted to Sippar, per AfD discussion" The AfD closer's comment about this change is here. It seems to me that the redirect target should be as per the AfD close.Selfstudier (talk) 19:34, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

When I said "per AfD discussion", I meant per the explanations given by Danstronger, 115.64.100.121 and myself there, as to why redirecting it to Plimpton 322 makes no sense. – Joe (talk) 20:53, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Neither redirect makes any sense to me. Neither target contains any information about Si.427 and a reader who goes to those articles following the redirect will just be baffled. I suggest Istanbul Archaeology Museums, which actually has content about Si.427. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:30, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I added the identifier to the caption of the image in Sippar, so readers wouldn't be completely baffled. XOR'easter (talk) 21:57, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

The closer thinks it makes sense, so do I and so did others, it is not for an editor to unilaterally dispense with a close and thereby enforce his own "vote".Selfstudier (talk) 22:53, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

In the AfD Selfstudier, Caleb Stanford, and Joe Roe suggested a merge (not redirect) to Plimpton 322. I and XOR'easter opposed the merge. Joe Roe also suggested a redirect to Plimpton 322 as an alternative outcome. As far as I can see this was the only comment about a non-merge redirect. I don't understand how User:Randykitty could have concluded from that that (as claimed at User talk:Randykitty) a redirect was "the well-argued majority view". In any case, Randykitty added that "I have no strong feelings about the change in redirect target", so arguing that we must respect the opinions of the closer is pointless. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:14, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

The closer indicated that the purpose of the redirect close was to allow for further discussion rather than outright deletion, the original deletion argument being insufficient. So that's what we should be doing regardless of where it is directed. Joe Roe said it was a POV fork in the discussion. A POV fork of what, exactly? Selfstudier (talk) 23:26, 15 November 2021 (UTC)