On 17/02/2011 13:19, Carcharoth wrote:
To take the Poincare conjecture example, compare the
Wikipedia article
to this accessible explanation. Should the Wikipedia article
incorporate explanatory aspects similar to those used in the SEED
magazine article?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_conjecture
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/what_is_the_poincare_conjecture/
I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I found the SEED magazine
article more accessible and I learnt more from it.
Unfortunately the magazine
article completely ducks the issue of what
the conjecture is. Even on a charitable view, it confuses a necessary
with a sufficient condition, which would be the *whole point*. This kind
of this is actually why this one has not been solved yet on WP: we
(rightly) don't allow people to waffle around the facts in order to
claim they are explaining. (If you think we do badly, have a look at a
standard mathematical encyclopedia:
http://eom.springer.de/p/p073000.htm.)
Charles