Wikipedia:Featured article review/Leonhard Euler/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 6:54, 4 September 2021 (UTC) [1].

Leonhard Euler

Notified: Borisblue, WikiProject History of Science, WikiProject Physics, WikiProject Mathematics, WikiProject Russia, WikiProject Switzerland, WikiProject Education, WikiProject Biography, WikiProject Systems, WikiProject Music theory, diff for talk page notification April 4

Review section

I am nominating this featured article for review because it was promoted in 2006 and hasn't been evaluated since. Hog Farm notes on the talk page that "There's a good bit of uncited text, and the length of the further reading compared to the number of sources used has me concerned about "thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature"." (t · c) buidhe 04:03, 8 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well the article is by far better expanded than when he was nominated in 2006. I've noticed some uncertainties, which I try to address further on, but not necessarily to keep an FA. I just read the FA criteria a minute ago. I guess in prose the article needs some copy edit. The sources available in the article are I guess rather good. Specially on the bio in St. Petersburgh. But on math, I don't know how well they are used. I am not a math formula specialist, (yet, who knows?). Maybe also ping an editor on mathematics?Paradise Chronicle (talk) 05:47, 22 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Move to FARC Despite efforts there are no improvements ongoing, sourcing issues (uncited text, etc.) remain. (t · c) buidhe 01:52, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • "No improvements ongoing" is dubious; there have been over 50 individual edits to the article, many significant, and many involving sourcing, since the FAR opened. "There are no improvements ongoing" was stated only two days after the most recent previous improvement. FA reviewers have made no effort to identify problematic uncited material, or to distinguish between uncited material that is general background knowledge from uncited material that makes a specific claim and needs a citation. Merely stating "there's a good bit of uncited text" is too unspecific to be possible to address directly. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:04, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • You seem not to notice that I made the comment 6 days ago. Actually I think that unsourced content is a perfectly specific issue with a straightforward fix. (t · c) buidhe 21:23, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • How could I not have noticed that when I specifically compared the date of your comment to the date of the most recent improvement prior to your comment? And in some cases it takes considerable effort to find the right sources, not because there is too little sourcing because there is too much. For instance, in searching for a source for the one-sentence link to Euler–Bernoulli beam theory, I found that Google Scholar claims to have 50,000 sources for the exact phrase "Euler-Bernoulli beam". Despite that, it might be more straightforward if the people complaining about things being unsourced would be more specific about which things, in a 67kb article, they think are inadequately sourced. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:34, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Buidhe and Nikkimaria: WP:FARC states "An article is never listed as a removal candidate without first undergoing a review." I see nothing in this section that looks specific enough to count as a review for my taste. Surely a review means, you know, actual review, and not merely the creation of a review section and then passing a waiting period with no actual review forthcoming. I am concerned that (similarly to Buidhe's comment above, seemingly) FARC contributors may start making "delist" comments without paying any attention to the significant improvements made since the beginning of the FAR, or that despite these improvements the article will be viewed as lacking in some specific way and that (because such a problem was never discussed in the FAR) the delist comments will snowball before there is any opportunity to make further improvements. I have repeatedly quick-failed GA candidates for inadequate sourcing, but never without providing guidance to which parts of the article require sourcing and why. May I please have some feedback on whether the current sourcing is adequate, or if not on which specific points in the article need sourcing or better sourcing? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:50, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also pinging @Hog Farm:. --JBL (talk) 20:01, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also pinging Paradise Chronicle so they can elaborate on their concerns. On the general question: I see and appreciate that there have been improvements made to the article since its nomination, and delisting is by no means a foregone conclusion at this point - if someone were to raise issues requiring edits and work is ongoing/planned to address those, we're happy to keep the nomination open longer to support that, and to eventually conclude the nomination in favour of retaining FA status once that is done. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:54, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@David Eppstein, JayBeeEll, Nikkimaria, and Buidhe: - The uncited text seems to have been mostly addressed, so I'll go ahead and give it a bit of a look-through and leave some notes in the FARC section below. Hog Farm Talk 01:20, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
After the many edits by Eppstein, I guess the article has sure made a considerable improvement on the mathematics. On the bio part I have sourced several phrases and expanded it slightly as well. (Others, who have not been pinged have also worked on the article since). I might find a few phrases more to source but the main parts are sourced. The more I work on the article I see that Leonard Euler has sort of been really influential on mathematics and has qualified authors. I am sure the sources are already available in the article to keep it an FA and I guess Eppstein has done a good work in that regard.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 10:19, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, he's still a towering figure in mathematics. There's a reason for the "master of us all" monicker. That's part of what makes sourcing this article difficult work: he made such fundamental contributions to so many subjects that we are reduced to single-sentence summaries of topics that have entire books devoted to them. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:01, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section mostly concern sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:13, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
HF comments
  • "including its best-known result, the Euler–Lagrange equation." - stating that something is the "best-known" may need a citation for this.
  • Fluid dynamics is mentioned in the lead, but the word "fluid" only appears in the lead, some references, and a category (I don't know enough about fluid dynamics to determine where if its discussed under another name, please excuse my stupidity if it is) - is the sentence about inviscid flow the fluid dynamics stuff?
  • I'm trying to do a little c/e as I go along, although it wouldn't hurt to try to get someone to copy-edit this (stuff like "fathers" vs "father's"
  • "Euler's daring use of power series enabled him to solve the famous Basel problem in 1735" - unclear what "daring use" means here; it may be best to just drop the "daring"
  • "Euler has an extensive bibliography. His best-known books include:" - are there sources calling these the best-known works, or are these simply ones picked out by editors?
  • Grinstein & Lipsey needs the isbn, if applicable
  • Probably ought to include the publisher for the Eulogy by Fuss, as it's being hosted online with a few notes
  • "A. Ya. Yakovlev (1983). Leonhard Euler. M.: Prosvesheniye." - Is this a book? A paper? A journal article? Does this need page numbers?
  • Wanner & Hairer needs the isbn
  • Caldwell's largest known prime by year needs the publisher (University of Tennessee - Martin)
  • "Youschkevitch, A P (1970–1990). Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York." - needs page numbers, and it looks like this source is in multiple volumes, so we need the volume number]
  • Sources that do not appear to be in English such as "Gindikin, S.G., Гиндикин С. Г., МЦНМО, НМУ, 2001, с. 217." should generally say what language the source is in.

That's from a quick run-through, it looks like the hard part here will be cleaning up the sometimes-messy referencing format. Hog Farm Talk 01:39, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your input. I've added the two isbn's, I hope you don't mind that I've struck them from your list (to save others confusion about what remains). --JBL (talk) 02:14, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here's better bibliographic data for the Yakovlev reference: MR0735260 Yakovlev, A. Ya. Леонард Èй лер. (Russian) [Leonhard Euler] Люди Науки. [People of Science] "Prosveshchenie, Moscow, 1983. 80 pp. --JBL (talk) 02:19, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not convinced the Euler–Lagrange equation is the best-known result in the calculus of variations (it may be one of the most fundamental, but that's not the same thing, and an equation is not a result), so I reworded. One could plausibly justify "daring" for the Basel problem in terms of the way his solution works by handling a much more general problem, but I think better to just remove the editorialization, so I did that as well. Same for the "best-known works": I don't see why we need to argue how well they were known rather than just saying that this is a selection of his works. Maybe earlier years of FA reviewing were more focused on unnecessarily flowery language and less on justification of the adjectives and adverbs? Yakovlev reference updated per JBL's comment, including tagging it for its language. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:38, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
After cutting off for the evening I've made many other improvements to the citations, but I think not everything discussed above. The Gindikin source (the last bullet above) is an odd case: it repeats the author's name twice instead of giving a title, and there was an English version of what turns out to be the same book (assuming the missing title is the obvious one with that publisher and year) which we should have been citing instead. Fixed now. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:51, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yakovlev is a book, probably pre-ISBN--Ymblanter (talk) 18:42, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's how I had formatted it from JBL's information. The MR review is not very complementary, calling it "conventional hagiography", complaining about its lack of insight into Euler's thoughts, and quibbling with many of its claims for priority and missing topics. What we're using it for seems unobjectionable (minor details of Euler's death) but I'm wondering if we need to be citing a non-English-language and not particularly scholarly work for this material, or whether a better source for the same material (perhaps one we're already using) exists. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:02, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing wrong with citing a Russian source (after all, Euler spent a considerable part of his caree in Saint Petersburg and is buried there), but this is an outreach edition, directed at a general audience, presumably wioth zero prior knowledge of math. Probably we can fins something more comprehensive.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:10, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Yakovlev book, from its review, is aimed at a high school and undergraduate student audience (probably general enough for this material). And I have nothing against other-language sources, when necessary. But for material that should be in many sources, I think it is better for our audience to pick an English-language source when there's a good one available. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:45, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The fluid dynamics mention in the lead was already supported by a sentence about "inviscid flow" in the article — I mentioned "fluid dynamics" again there to make it easier for other readers to search from the lead for the matching concept later. Caldwell publisher added. The comment about the publisher of the eulogy by Fuss led me to discover that we had two different citations to this eulogy (one the original, the other translated); now merged. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:26, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, more references cleaned up, including the Youschkevitch one. I think that's the last of Hog Farm's issues. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:23, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is looking a lot better. I think there could be some minor formatting improvements on a few of the web sources at the end (mainly how to deal with citing the Euler Archive more consistently), but I think this is fairly close to this being kept. I hope to get to a full read-through soon. Hog Farm Talk 00:06, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Further comments (HF)
  • " Euler is also widely considered to be the most prolific, as his collected works fill 92 volumes" - most prolific is only found in the lead, the body gives the differing figure of 60-80 volumes
  • The Laplace and Gauss quotes are only in the lead; material in the lead should generally also be in the body
  • Johann Hennert is only mentioned in the infobox
  • Stepan Rumovsky is only mentioned in the infobox
  • The association with Joseph-Louis Lagrange is only mentioned in the infobox, it seems to merit mention in the body, as well
  • "Paul was a friend of the Bernoulli family[11] was interested in mathematics and" - copy editing issues, needs either a comma or another word
  • "In 1720, with only thirteen years of age, he enrolled at the University of Basel" - isn't the more standard phrasing "at only thirteen years of age"
  • "while leaving the Russian navy" - shouldn't this be Russian Navy, as a proper noun?
  • "He lived for 25 years in Berlin, where he wrote over 380 articles. In Berlin, he published the two works for which he would become most renowned: the Introductio in analysin infinitorum, a text on functions published in 1748, and the Institutiones calculi differentialis" - This whole thing is sourced to a 1787 work by Euler, I'm not sure that's going to be a particularly great source for 25 years in Berlin, 380 articles, or his two most renowned publications.
  • "which were later compiled into a best-selling volume entitled Letters of Euler on different Subjects in Natural Philosophy Addressed to a German Princess" - They had the concept of best-selling back then?
  • "Despite Euler's immense contribution to the Academy's prestige, and was also put forward as a candidate for its presidency by Jean le Rond d'Alembert, Frederick II named himself as its president" - Something is off here grammatically solved?
  • "In 1760, with the Seven Years' War raging, Euler's farm in Charlottenburg was sacked by advancing Russian troops" - only mention of Charlottenburg in the whole article, it seems worthwhile to mention that he lived there
  • "Euler was featured on both the sixth and seventh series of the Swiss 10-franc banknote and on numerous Swiss, German, and Russian postage stamps. The asteroid 2002 Euler was named in his honour. He is also commemorated by the Lutheran Church on their Calendar of Saints on 24 May—he was a devout Christian (and believer in biblical inerrancy) who wrote apologetics and argued forcefully against the prominent atheists of his time" - Source is an 18th-century paper by Euler, which obviously doesn't support a modern asteroid name, modern banknotes, and a Lutheran holiday.
  • "The first collection of Euler's work was made by Paul Heinrich von Fuss, Euler's great-grandson and Nicolas Fuss's son, in 1862" - I'm not sure that's its really good sourcing to cite that Fuss's work was the first collection to Fuss's work itself.
  • " "Euler Archive Moves To MAA Website". digitaleditions.walsworthprintgroup.com. Retrieved 9 January 2020." - publisher should be Mathematical Association of America, not walsworthprintgroup.com.

This is looking a lot better, it should be just about ready to be kept once these are fixed. Hog Farm Talk 03:29, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I added Rumovsky to the body (as a notable student of Euler in Berlin), but now he is only listed as the only notable student, if we can add more it would be great.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:08, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed up the "Euler Archive Moves To MAA Website" reference and removed the "best-selling" description. XOR'easter (talk) 03:01, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have added a source for the 10Chf banknotes, and added one more student (Lexell).
  • and also for the Swiss Opera Omnia (Eulers Complete Works)
  • About the mention in the Lutheran calendar (I've seen this is only for the ELCA the case, The ELCA was established in 1988 and there I couldn't find anything as well. Per Wikipedia, the ELCA represents 1.4% of the US population. Might not be notable enough for a mention?)
  • Paul Heinrich von Fuss only published a few of his works. The Swedish and Swiss works seem more notable to me.
  • I addressed the Charlottenburg issue with source when he bought the house.
  • Russian Navy is solved
  • The Paul Bernoulli phrase I hope is solved as well
  • And the Frederick 2 issue I tried to solve (there I'd be glad for a second view)Paradise Chronicle (talk) 06:04, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There was a bigger problem with the "first collection of Euler's work was made by Paul Heinrich von Fuss" claim, illustrative of why we should not be using this sort of source-for-itself: The Fuss 1862 paper was not really a "collection of Euler's work", so much as a collection of unpublished works that had (unlike hundreds of others) escaped posthumous publication. I found a published journal paper that details this and the rest of the history of publications of Euler's works (the one by Kleinert), added it to the article, and edited the article accordingly. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:37, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Shall we remove the ELCA Lutheran Calendar mention? Paradise Chronicle (talk) 19:45, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have no objections to that. Doesn't seem very significant since it's only a minor subdenomination. Hog Farm Talk 19:57, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@David Eppstein, JayBeeEll, and Paradise Chronicle: - Here's a handful of a few more comments.

  • "Much of what is known of Euler's religious beliefs can be deduced from his Letters to a German Princess and an earlier work, Rettung der Göttlichen Offenbahrung gegen die Einwürfe der Freygeister (Defense of the Divine Revelation against the Objections of the Freethinkers). These works show that Euler was a devout Christian who believed the Bible to be inspired; the Rettung was primarily an argument for the divine inspiration of scripture" - this is sourced entirely to the works of Euler himself, secondary commentary is probably needed to really support some of the conclusions drawn here
  • The concern about primary sourcing for "He lived for 25 years in Berlin, where he wrote over 380 articles. In Berlin, he published the two works for which he would become most renowned: the Introductio in analysin infinitorum, a text on functions published in 1748, and the Institutiones calculi differentialis" is still outstanding.

This is looking much better than when the FAR was opened. @Buidhe: - Do you have any additional comments here as original FAR nominator? Hog Farm Talk 00:55, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"25 years in Berlin, where he wrote over 380 articles" should be easy to source. "Most renowned" may be harder, though: he is very highly renowned among diverse communities of mathematicians for different things, so if you ask n of them for his most famous result or publication you might get n different answers. Can we phrase that part in a less opinionated way? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:58, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the "most renowned" part. XOR'easter (talk) 16:42, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I found a source from an Euler colloquium in May 1983 edited by Eberhard Knobloch. I sourced the the 25 years, but the source in German didn't say the exact amount of the articles he wrote, just hundreds. So I used this expression. Additionally, I found a phrase on his religious beliefs, and another one for a short stay at the theological faculty in Basel. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 16:47, 11 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Buidhe: - As the original nominator, do you have any outstanding concerns with the article yet? I will note that my point above about the "Much of what is known of Euler's religious beliefs ... " is not fully addressed yet. Hog Farm Talk 04:07, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Leaning keep—due to the massive sourcing improvements from David Eppstein and some other work by myself and Paradise Chronicle, this one seems largely back to standard as far as I can tell. Aza24 (talk) 00:52, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Aza24: - I'd still like to see the original research issue in sourcing Much of what is known of Euler's religious beliefs can be deduced from his Letters to a German Princess and an earlier work, Rettung der Göttlichen Offenbahrung gegen die Einwürfe der Freygeister (Defense of the Divine Revelation against the Objections of the Freethinkers). These works show that Euler was a devout Christian who believed the Bible to be inspired; the Rettung was primarily an argument for the divine inspiration of scripture entirely to one of Euler's works be addressed, but once that gets fixed, I'll be at keep, I think too. Hog Farm Talk 01:40, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, I didn't see that one, changed to "leaning keep" for the time being. Aza24 (talk) 02:07, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Review by Z1720

Let's get this FAR closed! Pinging the same editors pinged for HF's review above. If I missed someone please let me know: @David Eppstein, JayBeeEll, and Paradise Chronicle:

  • "he entered the Paris Academy Prize Problem competition" I think there should be a short half-sentence explaining what this competition is.
  • "Around this time Johann Bernoulli's two sons," Around what time?
  • "cut funding and caused other difficulties for Euler and his colleagues." What difficulties? This should be expanded.
  • "Conditions improved slightly after the death of Peter II," How long after Peter II's ascension did he pass away? This should be stated in the article so we know what year we are speaking of.
  • "Concerned about the continuing turmoil in Russia," What caused this turmoil in Russia? This should be specified in the article.
  • "Notable students of Euler in Berlin included Stepan Rumovsky, later considered as the first Russian astronomer." Does this need to be included in this article? This feels like WP:TRIVIA
  • "After several further misunderstandings Euler decided to leave Berlin in 1766." These further understandings should be described.
  • "At the university he was assisted by his student Anders Johan Lexell." Is this important to the article or is it WP:TRIVIA?

This takes me to "Contributions to mathematics and physics", which I will continue once the above are resolved. Z1720 (talk) 02:19, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm much more interested in issues with the mathematics content than with the parts about his life story, but I added a little more about the Paris Academy prizes, with a source. It's not at all clear to me that "Paris Academy Prize Problem" is a proper noun phrase; the Paris Academy offered an annual prize, based on competing to solve a problem, but the prize would have been called something in French like le prix de l'académie de Paris and appears to be the one described under a different name at fr:Grand prix des sciences mathématiques. I don't think the competition for the prize of the academy, or the problem posed for the competition for the prize of the academy, would have had separate names. So anyway, I replaced Paris Academy Prize Problem by (non-italic) Paris Academy prize competition. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:54, 30 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The two sons of Bernoulli were active at the Academy since 1725.
And the phrase of his departure was followed by other misunderstandings so I adapted the phrase accordingly and moved it to the end of the Berlin section. Then the turmoils are worded differently as suspicious and censorship in the section of St.Petersburg, I've expanded a bit on it.
The question on Peter II death was not clear. I anyway added the year he passed away and added his successor Anna of Russia.
If Stepan Rumovsky is important, I don't know. Lexell I included to show the notability of the assistance he received after the deterioration of his eyesight.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 08:56, 31 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think Rumovsky can be removed from the article. I think it should be explicitly stated that Lexell assisted Euler because of Euler's eyesight. Z1720 (talk) 22:37, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks David Eppstein and Paradise Chronicle for responding to my comments above so quickly. I continued my review below. For future responses, please comment under the bullet point you are addressing, similar to the format used in WP:FAC. This will help me keep the concerns organised. Please keep in mind that I am not a math person and have no specialty in this area, so many of my questions will seem dumb. I hope you will be patient with me.

  • For "Contributions to mathematics and physics": There's an article called Contributions of Leonhard Euler to mathematics, which is shorter than this section. Should some (most?) of the information in this section be moved to the contributions article?
    • I think a biography of a mathematician that removes most of the information about the mathematics they contributed is pointless. Why not write about some random 17th-century nobleman, instead, if you don't want to write about mathematics? Certainly such a move would make me lose all interest in contributing to this FAR and perhaps shift to recommending against continuation of its FA status. Perhaps the other article could be redirected to a section of this one, but that should be irrelevant to the FAR. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:56, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am glad that you are writing about mathematics: this is an under-represented topic at Wikipedia and needs knowledgeable editors to contribute. Euler is a biography article and in my opinion needs to be more easily assessable to a reader than an article explaining mathematical concepts. I believe this article should have an introduction and summary for each of Euler's contributions and the reader can click on a wikilink for more information. I think the "Graph theory" section does an excellent job with this because it introduces the Seven Bridges of Königsberg and formula regarding convex polyhedron without going into too much detail. I do not expect every section to be as short as Graph theory, but I am highlighting that section as an example of a good use of summary style. Z1720 (talk) 15:13, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • I fear you have been misled by the nature of the material. In graph theory, Euler made two baby steps, but they were important because they were the first steps. Still, our coverage of this is somewhat superficial, not even describing what a graph is or how the problem is transformed into a graph. On many other topics, Euler made giant steps, so many of them in so many areas that it is difficult to summarize them all. Our coverage is still necessarily and appropriately superficial, but to you it looks more technical because even summarizing them requires some technicality and because there are so many of them and they pile up. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:21, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The formatting of this section could use an expert. After determining what can be moved over to the contributions article, I suggest an expert copy-edit this section to merge smaller paragraphs and cut or split larger ones. For example, the first paragraph in the "Logic" section is too short, while the second paragraph is look long.
    • You know that paragraphs should be organized by logical topics, rather than by the aesthetic appearance of their line lengths, right? I split the second paragraph into one long one and another short one, so now we have three paragraphs, on three aspects to this topic: Euler's introduction of Euler diagrams, what they are, and how they are used nowadays. The other alternative would be to merge them all together into one big paragraph.
      • In WP:PARAGRAPH, it says that one-sentence paragraphs should be used sparingly. "Physics, astronomy, and engineering" and "Logic" has a couple of these short paragraphs. Can these paragraphs be merged or perhaps expanded to explain their significance?
  • The section often talks about Euler's important contributions, which seems POV. I recommend phrasing like this be removed; the reader can determine on their own that they are important contributions when they read about what he has actually done. The article can also talk about how his contributions are important (what they influenced, new ideas that were possible because of his discoveries, etc.) that show the reader that his contributions are important (which is better than telling the reader that his contributions are important).
    • This comment seems motivated by a fundamental misunderstanding of what Wikipedia is, and one that is strangely contradictory to the comment above asking to remove most of the mathematics. Saying that important contributions are important, when reliable sources agree they are important, is not problematic. WP:NPOV does not require us to omit opinions, and state only what can be verified as mathematical fact; it only requires that, when we report opinions, we provide the mainstream of opinions and attribute them. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:59, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Opinions do not have to be omitted. It's difficult for Wikipedia to maintain WP:WIKIVOICE with qualitative, opinionated statements. One solution is what I suggested above, another is to add the people who have said he is important to the prose. Z1720 (talk) 15:13, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

After this section is fixed up, I will take another, more detailed look at it. Z1720 (talk) 22:37, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Z1720, I suggest you leave the formatting and on what is important/POV etc. in mathematics to the editors on mathematics. Leonard Euler was one of the most influential personalities in mathematics, and this is important. The main issue at the beginning of the FAR was the sourcing and this one has been addressed. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 23:48, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Paradise Chronicle: All FACs require a non-expert to review and comment on the formatting. Since an FAR is another look at the FA criteria, I think it's important that non-experts also comment on FARs, too. I encourage disagreement with my comments, accompanied by an explanation. This allows the FAR co-ords to determine why things are a certain way in the article and prevent articles from returning to FAR with concerns that have already been addressed here. I am not commenting on what I think is important to include, but instead suggesting that it could be summarized more effectively. While this article was brought to FAR for sourcing concerns, all FA criteria is examined in an FAR. I will ensure that the article complies with all FA criteria, as per my understanding of the criteria, before recommending that this "keep" its status. Z1720 (talk) 15:13, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, non-experts sure should comment on FAR but the formatting has received a lot of time. Besides mathematics is an exact science where there is little room for doubt if something is important/"POV" or not. In mathematics it is mostly not depending on a POV if something exists or not much less at Eulers involvement in mathematics. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing comments:

  • "In 1757 he published an important set of equations for inviscid flow in fluid dynamics, that are now known as the Euler equations.[84]" I am concerned that this sentence says this set of equations is important, but it is cited to Euler's publication. Can another citation be added to this sentence that verifies that these equations are important?
    • Um. Google Scholar says there are approximately 250,000 (!) references on the Euler equations. Is it really necessary to pick one as representative here, and one that says something so banal as that they are "important"? Wouldn't our wikilink to that topic perform better as a way for readers to verify that information? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:25, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am surprised by how short the Commemorations section is. I went to Euler (disambiguation) and found an uncited claim that AMS Euler is named for Euler. I am trying to track down a high-quality reliable source for this; does anyone have any ideas? Also, are there any ideas of other commemorations for Euler, perhaps statues, buildings named for him at universities, street names, or other computer software/mathematical products?
    • We have a separate List of things named after Leonhard Euler. Some random typeface named after him is too minor to list here, among the many many things named after him. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:25, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • What would be unusual is if anything in mathematics called "Euler" were not named after Leonhard but rather after Bob Euler of Lincoln, Nebraska instead. At any rate, one of the citations already in that article explicitly stated the source of the name, so re-using that gives a footnote for that (unremarkable) claim. XOR'easter (talk) 17:29, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • Oh my goodness, I did not realise how extensive this list it. Should List of things named after Leonhard Euler be hatnoted at the top of this section? I would be in favour of adding prose describing the things named for Euler. Maybe something like, "Several of Euler's contributions to mathematics, physics and music are named for him, such as [insert two or three of the most popular/most influential contributions here]. After his death, several objects and products were named in his honour including the 2002 Euler astroid, a toy called Euler's Disk, and the AMS Euler typeface for displaying mathematical equations." For the products, it doesn't have to be these three but I think those are pretty notable/interesting things named for him. Z1720 (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • MANY MANY of Euler's contributions to mathematics are named after him. They comprise much of the mathematical content of this article, and are appropriately described in brief in the article rather than merely listed as a handful of names of topics. There is a reason for the "master of us all" terminology. Your comments here give the impression that you still think he was just a middle-of-the-road mathematician for his time, rather than someone who is still a towering figure over many fields of mathematics today. That impression is leading you towards trying to minimize his mathematical accomplishments, a mistake for this particular article. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:44, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
            • The most significant mathematical and scientific ones are detailed in the contributions section. A compromise might be to focus the commemorations section on non-mathematical or scientific topics; e.i. the things that are actually commemorating him, not derived from him. At any rates, List of things named after Leonhard Euler should probably be linked somewhere in here. Hog Farm Talk 20:07, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The works listed in "Bibliography" were formatted inconsistently. In the spirit of WP:SOFIXIT I reformatted the bibliography. My changes included: removing ISBNs (as WP:BIBLIOGRAPHY says ISBNs might be unhelpful for works that have had multiple editions, which I suspect is the case here), putting the works in chronological order by first publication, removing explanations of what the publication is (as this should be explained in the other sections, where appropriate), and other formatting consistencies. I invite editors to take a look and add information where appropriate. Hopefully, book title translations to English can be cited and verified.
  • Was Letters to a German Princess originally published in English? If not, the article should have the original title first (In French I think?) then the English translation afterward.
  • Are the sources in "Further reading" high-quality sources? If so, they should be used in the article. If not, I recommend removing them because if a source is not good enough to be used in the article, I don't think Wikipedia should recommend that readers seek it out.
    • I already made a pass through this limiting the Further reading section to reliably published book-length sources primarily about Euler, so yes, they are high-quality sources. (I just removed one that was added yesterday that was not book-length.) It should not be necessary to use all such sources as references in the article; what is important is that we cover the material about the subject in a verifiable way, not that we make excuses to shoehorn-in references. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Agree - I looked at this earlier and thought it was fine. It's generally impossible to work in every single major work on a large-scale subject like this, and further reading can be used to list a few select works that were not included, but may be useful. I think the breadth of sourcing in this article is good. Hog Farm Talk 17:49, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • Incidentally, there is at least one book-length source that we are not listing here: Debnath's The Legacy of Leonhard Euler (Imperial College Press, 2010). According to the review at MR2572971 it is best avoided, so it is good that we are not using it as a reference. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'm glad David Eppstein made note of a source we should not use. If consensus is to leave these in Further reading, then I won't object. Z1720 (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Z1720 (talk) 16:25, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • I do not understand the purpose of removing explanations of what [a] publication is. To my eye, that just takes that section of the article more towards being a list and less like prose, making it less informative. Explaining what a publication is at the place where it is mentioned makes sense. XOR'easter (talk) 17:25, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree, while it's probably against the MOS somewhere, a brief description of what the work is would be helpful to readers, provide that the description is free of original research. Hog Farm Talk 17:46, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am fine with a brief description of what the work is, as long as every work gets that description for consistency. I will note that many of these works are talked about in the article, so these should be as brief as possible. Z1720 (talk) 18:50, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm at keep now. There's still a bit left to do, but the issues do not seem to be major. I think this is pretty close to the FA criteria now, and the sourcing issues seem to have been resolved. Not perfect, but good enough. Hog Farm Talk 16:33, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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