Wikipedia: VladimirArnold/Talk

: One of the world's top mechanicians. A bit of a nut, but having survived Soviet Russia from Stalin, who cares? For example, a recent pot-kettle-black diatribe rails against the French for stifling mathematics with effete formalism (words to the effect), but Arnold is plenty rigorous and stints no useful abstraction, when necessary.

This is not an encyclopedia article, but I'm not sure how to rewrite it so that it is one. What is a "mechanician"? (Maybe mathematicians know? Should that be explained in its own article?) "Bit of a nut" is too informal, and the question "who cares?" is confusing and also too informal. "a recent pot-kettle-black diatribe rails against the French" is not grammatical ("diatribes" do not "rail"; people do, and in any case, it's not clear whose diatribe or railing is under discussion). "Plenty rigorous" is a puzzling comment to make about a famous mathematician (like, which of them aren't?) and "stints no useful abstraction, when necessary" is again, just plain puzzling. What does it mean?

Please, erase the above comment [but see below] when the article is improved by someone who can improve it...something I lack the knowledge to do. --LMS]

Sure. I can revise it to the point of technical incomprehensibility, but I think a middle ground would be more appropriate. I have a problem: the links seem to be broken. I cannot get to any of them using mozilla on linux. This is a problem. Here is what I will do if I can get to it:

"top mathematicians in the field of mechanics" "dates from Stalinist USSR" "an early achievement is the [Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM)]? theorem in dynamics" "known for string opinions, which can be found on the web (link?)" "his writing style mixes rigorous and abstract mathematics with informal, almost conversational prose"

Ok, I was able to get to the page and edit it. Let me know what you think. I am still having trouble getting to pages though. I had back up through the browser to get back here. The link on the page just gave me 404s.

Back again... using www.wikipedia.com works for relative links... the .org doesn't work so well. No big deal. Here is a suggestion though, before all these comments get whacked: The two writeups would make a dandy before/after example of how and how not to write for wikipedia. Since I wrote them both and would not be comfortable making that call. LMS: thanks for the edit. I really enjoy publishing in the peer-reviewed literature for the same reason. Almost all reviews, "good" or "bad" can be used for improvement!

This: [Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM)]? does not work yet because of the parentheses. Soon (when? I don't know, but Jimbo or Jason might) those sorts of links will work. BTW, are you sure "[Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM)]?" is a good name for an article, anyway? Maybe "[Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser Theory]?" (or whatever it is--don't ask me)? --LMS

No, I am not sure that "[Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM)]?", is a good name for an article, but it will be an important article, whatever the name. Arnold is actually spelled Arnol'd, but that seems like it would be quite difficult also. How were the changes to the main page?

Well, the changes removed the obvious problems that the likes of me, who lacks much mathematical training beyond high school calculus, could spot. --LMS