Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ascending power numbers

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 delete. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 13:33, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ascending power numbers

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Contested prod. I don't doubt that those numbers exist, but I can't find any sources that call it an "ascending power number". It thus fails WP:V and WP:N at the very least. Tim Song (talk) 16:51, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and redirect if there is appropriate target, if not, delete This looks like the kind of game or trivia remedial math teachers use to put an interesting spin on numbers. Things like this are common in riddles, too. If we have an article on this topic, this could go there - with a reference. Miami33139 (talk) 17:05, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
MathWorld discusses them in its article for narcissistic numbers. ISBN 9780821848074 documents these numbers, without giving them a name, on pages 51 and 95, noting that "there seems to exist only nine numbers [greater than 9] satisfying this property". Uncle G (talk) 18:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I saw that, but...are we supposed to call it "unnamed numbers" or something? I can't find any WP:RS actually giving it a name. Tim Song (talk) 18:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Nor could I. I think we have to do as the sources do: Discuss these as a minor addendum to narcissistic number. And yes, I agree that part of the problem here is that someone just invented a name for these things from whole cloth, then it was redlinked, then someone grew this bad article in order to recolour that redlink. Uncle G (talk) 00:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Certainly a pretty minor concept. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to narcissistic number#Related concepts as the second source refers to them by this term. It would be nice to have this as a standalone article, but there's not enough here to stand alone, and I'm not sure if there is sufficiency of gain in merging vis-à-vis redirection (would the addition of the examples mess up the format?). 147.70.242.54 (talk) 19:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry, which source are you referring to? Tim Song (talk) 19:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - The second source listed at the bottom of the article itself.147.70.242.54 (talk) 16:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - That source says that this kind of numbers is mentioned in Mathworld's article on narcissistic number; it is, but not given a name in there either. This kind of number has a mention in narcissistic number already. But since apparently this name is made out of whole cloth and there's nothing to merge, I don't see the need to make this a redirect. Tim Song (talk) 17:19, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 06:01, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, no merge. This is a legitimate spinoff of narcissistic number, an article which seems to be maintained by a narcissist who writes for his/her fellow mathematicians instead of members of the ignorant masses like me. This one at least is written in plain English, which is something we aim for in an encyclopedia. In that article, the "sophisticated" description of ascending power numbers is "(sequence A032799 in the OEIS) : $n=\sum _{i=1}^{k}{d_{i}}^{i}\,.$ ". Yeah, thanks Einstein, I see what you mean. Somehow, I don't think that the narrative in this article would survive long, given the smarter-than-thou attitude found in the other article. Mandsford (talk) 13:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- No, it's not a legitimate spinoff. The main problem with narcissistic number is that this kind of article appeals mostly to non-mathematicians, but this one is written using $\sum$ notation and almost no examples, making it almost impossible for non-mathematicians to read it. This problem is easily fixed; in fact I will do it right now. Narcissistic numbers are somewhat notable, but "ascending power numbers" are not. Even putting them under the title "ascending power numbers" seems to be original research: An attempt to coin a name for these numbers, and a poor one too – ~~not too surprising, since the original author seems to have trouble with the English language ("when added up, it will equal of the original number")~~. Hans Adler 08:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think narcissistic number should be easier to understand now. I don't agree that "sequence ... in OEIS" is a problem, if that was implied above. This is simply a reference to an encyclopedia. I would have expanded the abbreviation the first time it appears, but the abbreviation is in a template, and the template doesn't seem to support this. Hans Adler 09:40, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good job on the rewrite by Hans. I think it strikes the tough balance in making something that can be appreciated by mathematicians, and understood by persons who are curious about mathematics. Mandsford (talk) 21:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete essentially per Uncle G. The title is a neologism, and there is no suitable title. Narcissistic number already discusses the topic in adequate detail, but we can add the two examples to it. That's too trivial to be a copyright problem, so we can simply delete this stub rather than preserve it and continue to push this neologism. Hans Adler 09:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have always been somewhat doubtful about us creating articles based only on OEIS. In this particular case, since the only source I have seen for the title of the article seems is a geocities page, I would say there is no need for a redirect. Thus I feel that simply deleting this article is the simplest option. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:23, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete for the reasons pointed out above. Boris Tsirelson (talk) 12:55, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Narcissistic numbers are barely notable; these are not. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:39, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
comment. neil sloane's encyclopedia of integer sequences (the only potentially reliable source for the article) is not generally considered to be evidence of notability. direct evidence of notability should generally include sources in the proper mathematical literature. i have noticed that the requirements for number theory are generally much lower, but they at least include posts in well-regarded usenet forums (apparently). this article has none of the above. Le Docteur (talk) 00:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete:There are two references given, one is self published and the other, OEIS, is indiscriminate about what it includes, so notability is not established. Neither one gives a name to the numbers, that appears to be a result of OR in the "Narcissistic number" article. At best the OEIS entry means it should have a mention in "Narcissistic number" but its already got one.--RDBury (talk) 16:56, 11 October 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.