Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Minimum principle (mathematics)

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. Cirt (talk) 03:44, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Minimum principle (mathematics)

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Badly named. It's possible a rename, and creating a disambiguation page under this name (Minimum principle (mathematics)) would be appropriate, but, even if this principle is notable (I'm not convinced), it might be better to delete this one and start over under a more accurate name. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I'm going to say it's likely not notable enough of a mathematical principle for an article, as per discussion below. [Belinrahs|^talktome⁄ _ididit] 01:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The related question is: Does anyone call it the "minimum principle", and what the appropriate context would be. It seems to me that it follows immediately from the unit ball in a Hilbert space being compact in the weak topology. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure there are people that call it that. For example, elementary children call the combining of factored polynomials the FOIL method, whereas professionals (such as mathematicians) consider this a part of the Distributive property. It should be noted that some methods and principles are more notable than others, and FOIL is widely taught and used in schools. The minimum principle, however, likely is not as widely taught and therefore likely doesn't merit an article. [Belinrahs|^talktome⁄ _ididit] 16:24, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. -- [Belinrahs|^talktome⁄ _ididit] 16:19, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Our own Hilbert space article contains a much more thorough discussion of this principle and its applications. That said, I am reluctant to vote delete, since I feel that the article could potentially be expanded beyond the setting of Hilbert spaces. Sławomir Biały (talk) 01:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: The name is misleading since it doesn't provide context. It seems to be taken from a section heading in the reference sited, but it's questionable whether it is a universally accepted name or that the name refers only to this theorem. In addition, there is no evidence of notability given. While it's possible to that the article could be expanded beyond the context of Hilbert spaces, keeping the article alive for the sake of a future expansion which may never happen is not appropriate. If and when someone can find material for such an expansion then they can easily start the article over again.--RDBury (talk) 06:16, 6 December 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.