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Not quite Ezra Pound ...

On the "tantric" variety of the eternal human game ...

So why all this delaying? So much procrastination?

But half the fun of playing is in anticipation!

(One of my short compositions) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 09:19, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Bravo!
"I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."
 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:32, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, superb :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!)

11:04, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

And adding, at the other end of the spectrum on The Game in its function as a distraction from earthly woes (this one's not mine, of course, but I do love it!)
I could tell you that violets are blue, I could tell you that roses are red,
I'm not really feeling myself, just now - do you mind if I feel you instead?
Pesky (talk …stalk!) 11:11, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
And the non-encyclopaedic-writing example - Belloc x Tennyson hybrid, perhaps? Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:48, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost: 12 December 2011

Hotel Polen fire

Hello KW, I hope that you are feeling better. I know that you are busy so if you don't have time or the topic doesn't interest you, I certainly understand. This 1977 fire in Amsterdam killed 30+ Swedish tourists. I got interested because the artist mentioned toward the end is the sister of a wonderful guy I knew for about 15 years until his cancer death 2 years ago. Anyway, the sources now are in Dutch and English. I assume that this was a pretty big deal in Sweden at the time, and that you may know how to find a Swedish language source or two that could be used to improve and expand the article. Let me know and thank you. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 16:49, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Cullen,
It shall probably be a few weeks before I would have time, and then I will be without internet access. In January, I would like to try to help.
Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:38, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
There are no deadlines, so that is fine. I hope your time away from the internet is restful. I always enjoy my time in the wilderness, where I am away from the web, TV, newspapers and automobiles. Then, I enjoy returning to them. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:50, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
More time in the wilderness would be better for my health than spending my evenings in smoke-filled rooms in Lviv. However, I am more likely to fall into a pile of buckwheat than off a cliff!
Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:15, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Talk -- Hx of macro-ec thought

In re: "Read George Stigler's criticism of Hayek etc." -- Could we have a title or a ref for this? I'm not in this field, and a simple search did not make it obvious what work of criticism was suggested. -- Jo3sampl (talk) 03:39, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jo3samp,
You are quite right to ask for specifics.
Unfortunately, I don't have JSTOR this week. Nonetheless, I shall try to visit a library and find the reference for you.
Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:06, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. No heroics please, just nudge me in the right direction if it's easy. -- Jo3sampl (talk) 21:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
There's a chance on Monday. Otherwise, it could be Wednesday.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I've been delayed. Maybe next week. Sorry for the inconvenience.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:51, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

BD

You have new message/s Hello. You have a new message at Wgfinley's talk page.

Hi Kiefer, I don't know if you're in touch with BD or not, but, if you are, could you please let him know that I truly am incredibly sorry for upsetting him so much; that was the very last outcome I'd have wanted. If I hadn't agreed to stay away from his talk, I'd offer him an olive-branch and / or a beer. I hate, I truly hate, hurting people by mistake. And we do need people like BD on the never-ending cleanup tasks here! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 10:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi ThatPeskycommoner,
My only contact with BD has been on-wiki. I suspect that he has discovered that he can join a band, play at a go club, volunteer as a tutor at a local school, write article for pay, without the frustrations of dealing with vandals and underqualified contributors on the one hand and underqualified administrators on the other.
Short of having a female relative of Wgfinley call him and talk some sense into him, there is little hop of getting the kitten down from the tree (or the Badger out of his burrow).
I appreciate your offer of help, but I think it's too late.
 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:50, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I suspect that, under the circumstances, he never even saw that the very first thing I did at AN/I was to apologise for upsetting him :o( Pesky (talk …stalk!) 17:43, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I forget the details of ANI, but I remember that BD was primarily responding to an old message. (For myself, I foresaw the possibility of BD responding badly to your note, which is why I was rougher in language than usual, to pre-empt him as it were. I cannot think of an earlier time when I wrote an irritated "hell"....)
There are plenty of great things that BD is doing besides editing WP. I would think it fitting that the blocking administrator reduce the indefinite block, so that BD does't have to ask to return to editing. BD was very responsive to discussion at ANI.
It is a pity that the first admin really obliterated that needle in a haystack, a productive ANI discussion, with ... a silo of hay ....
Straining my metaphoric powers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Metaphor has nothing on the real reality ... having done extensive work with horses, in all horsey spheres, attempting to find the genuine plaiting needle which the actual yard puppy has seized and buried in (yes!) the actual haystack, almost nothing compares to it! I see no need for an indef; sincerely hope it gets quietly removed. I honestly had no idea that BD would react quite so explosively, perhaps sans morphine I would have been a little clearer in my thoughts. But sans morphine equals plus pain, so maybe not ... Oohh, and did you know that the word "haywire" comes, quite literally, from the unearthly tangle that the wire used in semi-olden days for tying hay bales can get into when left to its own devices? And "cupboard" was a board on which cups were stored? (I love language :o) ) I get the feeling that if BD and I were to share a (really excellent, by the way) local ale at my local pub, we might actually get on OK. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 21:11, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
It is delicate to use a needle on horses. I saw a vet hide the needle in a hammerfist and then use medium-strength (human) pounding 3-4 times before letting the needle sink in---to avoid teaching the horse to fear the injection.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:44, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Standard practice, that one. I remember (decades ago) being the only member of staff on a large yard that the vet would trust to do the injections when the entire lot went down with equine flu .... 70 horses, two injections per day each. I was injecting things in my sleep! With the dog, we just give the area we're about to inject a firm scratchy rub just before slipping the needle in (once-a-monthly, anti-allergy "vaccination" wossname) - she doesn't even notice the needle, at that point. And hmmmmm, Dune - that takes me back! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 21:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Wheels within wheels.
The next time I get called out at ANI, I should remember to intone, "May your blade chip and shatter!".

Hehe! I wish the Litany Against Fear worked better! Sometimes my neck scares me shitless. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 22:16, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Spinal pain is terrible.
Well, it could be worse. Imagine that you had a prostate the size of a coconut. ;)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:35, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
No, I'll leave that bit of imagination to others! My pain isn't so much "spinal" as neurological caused by nerve roots in my neck being seriously compromised. Some kindly person suggesting that some "nice deep massage" might help scares me shitless - lovely, yes! Nice strong pressure applied to hypermobile vertebral joints in the immediate vicinity of nerves which are being slowly crushed ... sure, that'll fix it, yes! The scary thing with the neck is that there's now enough damage in the nerve root area that it's affecting motor function as well as sensation, right through my left arm, and the left side of my back / shoulder, and the left-side upper abs. Which obviously affects co-ordination and balance - and a hefty fall in the wrong direction would be easily enough to FUBAR some of those nerves, possibly leaving me with permanent paralysis in muscles which are (at the moment) just soggy, juddery, and unresponsive. That's the scary part - the "something could go catastrophically wrong" bit. Here's a lovely one for you to imagine (one of my first-aid rescues from a way back) - chappie got kicked in the crotch by a horse, blood all over the breeches - didn't want to let anyone assess the damage (silly sod! embarrassed!) ... and when he was persuaded to do so, and the breeches came down, what we had there was a lovely tear in the scrotum, with one ball hanging down about 6 - 8 inches through the gap! Gently re-site ball, and safety pin job to close the scrotal tear, as immediate first aid! There, wasn't that a nice thing to imagine! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 13:25, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Well done! It is lucky for him that the horse didn't kick the testicle into a real fetal position, back up the inguinal canal. With that experience with the transcrotal first-aid, you would have been qualified to help the young 'uns with their piercing fascinations, which probably arrived years later.
The next few days are terribly busy, for me. Then the (Western) Xmas & Jul will be relaxing before New Year's and Eastern Xmas (when I probably will be without internet).  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:41, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Having combined being a First-Aider with working in farmy and horsey environments for some decades, it's amazing what one comes across. At least with humans one can generally communicate - but trying to get a pressure bandage onto the leg of an evil-tempered and frightened horse who's just severed an artery by kicking through a window is not for the faint-hearted! Having assisted vets with various castration operations, I'd actually feel relatively confident in coaxing an inguinally-situated ball back into the world in an emergency (just to make sure it wasn't twisted there - that's one quick way to lose a ball, not to mention excruciatingly painful). I can;t understand the fascination with multiple piercings, but then I'm getting old, I suppose! Tattoos, now, that's different :o) The next couple of weeks will be busy for us, too; we're hoping to be able to find two of our young (in-foal) mares and bring them back home off the Forest for some extra grub before the keep dies right back in the New Year. Of course they may not want to be caught, but we'll cross that bridge (or, more likely, bog) when we come to it. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 14:10, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

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Your positronic brain deserves my thanks.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:28, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Carleman

Hi,

thanks for undoing the revisions at the Carleman article, I was really not in the mood for discussion with an editor who uses such terminology.

Best, Sasha (talk) 15:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I was not in the mood either. If the remarks were about "Black chatter" or "girls' chatter", the editor probably would have been blocked by now.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:39, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
I am watching the article, and if there are more problems I will make some decision as an administrator. A single offensive comment is not worth blocking an IP editor for, since the offense has already been made. If there was a pattern of such things, that would be a different matter. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
I similarly do not support a block. The issues should be discussed first and he should be given a chance to explain himself. It appears obvious to him that this information should not appear; once he notices that not everyone agrees, he may enter a dialog that may lead to a consensus. I don't see why someone should be dismissed out of hand because of a silly comment he made. Tkuvho (talk) 15:45, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
In any case, if a pattern of such comments develops, please let me know, because antisemitism will not be tolerated. I am not planning to get into the content discussion, but I am around if an outside administrator is needed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Carl -- thanks! KW -- we had a discussion which is somewhere in the archives of your talk page, perhaps we should move it to the talk page of the article? Sasha (talk) 16:08, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi Sasha and Carl!
I shall look for it tomorrow. I have had mild flue-like symptoms since Friday, the headache of which I first attributed to running across Demiurge1000 a few too many times this week...! ;)
Wikipedia really has been a headache lately.
 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps that's the ghost of Carleman tormenting you. Gesundheit! Sasha (talk) 18:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Abused alcohol

Hi K.,
are you sure about the phrase "abused alcohol"? I am afraid our strict colleagues would term it language abuse :)
Sasha (talk) 17:34, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Wiener used "died of alcoholism". In recent decades, "alcoholism" refers to the disease from which alcoholics suffer, whether an alcoholic continued to abuse alcohol or whether an alcoholic has avoided alcohol for years. "Alcohol abuse" seems preferable to "alcoholism".
I shall read the referenced discussion.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:39, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
I am sorry, I retract my remark, please ignore it. The only thing that bothered me was the active voice (which I thought unnatural in this phrase), but apparently it is as good as passive voice here.
There is a general principle that a discoursive unit has three parts. The beginning concerns something familiar. The end has the new information. The middle connects the two. (The principle appears in Alton Becker and Kenneth L. Pike's modern rhetoric, and also in books by Wayne Booth.)
Applied to the discussion of alcohol, this principle suggests that the sentence should begin with Carleman before moving to abuse of alcohol (alcoholism).
Often the principle suggests the passive voice.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:26, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

"Defamation League"

The IP contributed the following . edit summary on Swedish Wikipedia: "Wikipedia ska inte vara en utväxt av "Defamation League"" ("Wikipedia shall not be an outgrowth of the "Defamation League"") on 5 December 2011

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 13:03, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The site policy is that administrative actions can only be for edits to this site. So nothing can be done here about posts to Swedish wikipedia. But posting the note is still useful because it does give more perspective if there are more problematic edits on this site. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:20, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
Hmm... som själv led av manisk depression: did I understand this correctly? (not that it is factually wrong, still, I am a bit surprised) Sasha (talk) 17:34, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
I removed this from Swedish WP. Maligranda's bio, which is much longer, does not mention this, which may be OR by synthesis and certainly is undo weight. I noted the controversy of diagnosing bipolar disorder in historical figures in my undo.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:26, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
First, thanks again for doing the dirty work (which in this case I would be unable to do).
As far as I know, this is true, I could even find a ref., but a) definitely undue (esp. in an article on Carleman), b) a bit strange for someone reminding us what Wikipedia is NOT (in capitals). I do not think discussion with Mr. IP is of any use (if he would wish to add content rather than gossip, he would have done it already, rather than replacing gossip of one kind with gossip of another kind).
I have created a stub Erik Albert Holmgren, do you have an idea where to link it in the Carleman article? (H was C's supervisor, is this part of honours? personal life??) Sasha (talk) 00:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi Sasha!
I added a short phrase about him. I'm a bit tired to add the citation of the link between the two.
Was Holmgren a student of Mittag-Leffler? (Gaarding's histories of Swedish mathematics have a nice account of Weierstrauss-style analysis in Sweden, particularly p.d.e.s, harmonic functions, and complex analysis.)
 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
I do not know. The obituary by Nagell is in Norwegian and not online. Sasha (talk) 00:23, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
After all the editing, I think the proportion is reasonable (most of the article is about mathematics, the comments are in one short footnote). Now even the mean ergodic theorem is mentioned, so no-one can say I or Wiener whom I cite am a Swedophobe at least I hope I won't have to write that Beurling discovered C*-algebras to prove that :)
So I do not have much to add there (unless I take Gaarding's book from the library, but I am not sure Garding is completely reliable), and I will leave further improvements to other editors.
BTW, Gaarding does not tell who was the advisor of Holmgren (I searched in the googlebook).
Best, Sasha (talk) 23:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
The Kalmar IP's latest rant has more of the anti-semitic sounding "Defamation League" along with NPA about "national/ethnic" agendas. I trust that he will be blocked soon.
Gaarding is a great mathematician. He was one of the "two Southern emperors" who joined Lennart Carleson in steering Swedish mathematics for decades, helping to preserve its strengths in classical analysis; the Bombieri committee's review of Swedish mathematics suggested that more ecumenicism would be healthy. I witnessed Jean Bourgain give a talk a KTH, and it was interesting when he took a moment to confess---as one "hard" analyst to a room filled with "hard" analysts---that he had wrongly dismissed a lot of analysis as "soft", as using Baire category etc (and not having 20 pages of inequality juggling). I think that Bourgain and Bombieri may be trusted as healthy complement's to Gaarding's excellent histories, which do emphasize distribution theory and pde.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:26, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Even if he won't be blocked, it is unlikely he will ever manage to convince anyone to follow his suggestions. Our esteemed colleague also seems to have stopped enjoying the discussion. So eventually Mr. IP will have to explain to non-mathematicians that gossip is less interesting than quasianalytic classes. I am unfortunately not sufficiently familiar with Swedish politics to enjoy the discussion at sv:Användardiskussion:78.72.118.230 (do you have a clue how Jan Björklund has offended Mr. IP?).
I have never heard of the Bombieri committee before, do you mean this?
Sasha (talk) 16:27, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Precisely.
A country's true friends, and a professions' true champions, are those that justly praise what is admirable, while suggesting ways to improve things. Bombieri and Bourgain are true friends of Swedish mathematics, and true champions of mathematics and academic integrity. :)
Speaking of intellectual integrity and academic standards ....
Jan Björklund suggested that students study better when there are fewer distractions in the classroom, for example, and allowed teachers (after years of complaints) to confiscate mobile telephones.
Pontification
You should understand that Swedish schools had broken down so far that it was an everyday occurence for boys to hit weaker boys, in front of a teacher after receiving warnings, and to tell teachers to "go to hell, bitch". It is impossible for a feminist or socialist in the U.S. or France or Germany to imagine that lumpen schools were a social-democratic utopia, and that beating up on teachers was the high point of class struggle, but such attitudes have helped the greatest political party in human history to free fall for a decade now, with no soft landing in sight. (The latest polls are record low. But see When Prophecy Fails and party intellectual to understand the denial.)
But now I may sound opinionated....! ;)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:40, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
thanks, an opinionated explanation is exactly what I wanted (writing an apology for a right-wing education minister is usually a non-trivial task) Sasha (talk) 16:57, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Bjorklund is not right-wing. There is nothing socialist or feminist about having young men intimidate weaker boys or call their teachers "bitch". Tag Erlander must be rolling in his grave to see his party defending violence, harassment, and intimidation and ignoring knowledge. No social democrat in Germany or France would stand for such perversions, which are directly descended from the Maoist Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:03, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
I have only seen Sweden from the walls of Elsinore, so I am not the one to judge. I was referring to the decrease in university funding, which takes its toll on some of the best universities in Sweden. Obviously, university funding is not the most important issue in the world, but in this case it the only one I feel competent about. Sasha (talk) 17:34, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
The SAP/LO used to support the highest public levels of research and development in the world, in the belief that good jobs depended on technical progress. That policy was abandoned long ago, certainly by the mass of the party. When former PM Invar Carlsson spoke at Uppsala and emphasized research/jobs, his speech was disliked by the party faithful because he neglected further expansion of gender studies and other cross-disciplinary research telling us that everything is socially constructed. I believe that the SAP will drop even further, and have no hope of leading a government again, except the leftwing of a center-left coalition with liberals and greens.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:06, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
I see. Perhaps you are right, as you wrote, I am quite ignorant (this, quite connected to what you wrote above, was also new to me). Sasha (talk) 21:10, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

More on Swedish mathematics

I had heard that he had launched a website, and I shall view this with great interest and pleasure.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
btw, I took literally the phrase "After passing the "qualifying test" in the spring of 1964, I showed to prof. Hans Rådström at Stockholm University, what I had done. He told me, that what I had done could be related to infinite-dimensional topological groups and suggested that I should study some books on topological groups. So I studied Pontrjagin's book and the book by Montgomery-Zippin." from there. I did not manage to find other sources for either Stockholm or Linköping. Sasha (talk) 01:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi Sasha!
You have been very productive lately, and I appreciate especially that you have corrected my errors. (I wrote off the top of my head, without MR or journals access.)
The small "p" in "prof." probably indicates that he was a docent (roughly "associate professor" at a top-80 mathematics department in the U.S.), but not The Professor. In the old system, (capital "P") Professors were appointed by the Ministry of Education, and there were very few. Raadstroem was finally appointed as The Professor at the new university in Linkoeping (2 hours south of Stockholm).
Thanks again for the help with the article and the interesting link.
Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 02:13, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
thanks! here is another source. Unfortunately, it disagrees with Carleman as to the birth of Holmgren, and with Enflo regarding the death of Raadstroem (and I tend to trust Carleman and Enflo here). Sasha (talk) 02:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Widman's paper was fair and interesting, although it engaged in traditional euphemism about Torsten Carleman. (I much prefer any random essay by Gian-Carlo Rota, which elegantly liberates itself from the intellectual chains of traditions, and also enjoys shocking its audience with the truth; Boris T. Polyak's frank and appropriately brief discussion of antisemitism in the USSR, or German discussions of fascist mathematicians are better examples.)
Of course, such surveys must be selective. Nonetheless, I would have preferred mention to have been made of Ulf Grenander, Per Enflo, Dag Prawitz, Per Martin-Löf, and Edgar Asplund, each of whom changed the world; Martin Ribe publishes good papers still, and works for Statistics Sweden as an expert of price indices. Among younger demigods, Torsten Ekhdahl and Håkan Hedenmalm could have been mentioned, also; Hedenmalm is particularly noteworthy (and "Swedish") for his extension of the Beurling factorization theorem to Bergman spaces. In Stockholm, the Russian-trained mathematician Sergei Merkulov obviously does mathematics "with the Holy Spirit".
It could be that Raadstroem died earlier. I shall try to look up the date in another source.
 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi K.,
a) please have a look at the damage I have done to the RH article (in particular, the embedding part and the Hanner part). Perhaps it would be better to move start a short article on the R embedding, for now, I am not sure there is enough content.
b) I wonder whether to revert the last edit of Mr. IP at the TC article (it is almost copy-paste from Maligranda). Could you please have a look as a copyright expert (if you think it could be saved, you can leave a comment to Mr. IP, if not, I will just erase all the paragraph and firmly establish my place in the anti-Carleman conspiracy).
c) Widman imposed an age constraint, which Hedenmalm (and part of the others you mention) do not pass.
Best, Sasha (talk) 17:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

You did even more great editing.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:18, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

thanks, you have done most of the work. Sasha (talk) 22:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
another note on Radstrom: in 1952 he was appointed assistant professor (=docent?) in Stockholm, whereas in 1964, he was listed in KTH. Sasha (talk) 00:07, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
thanks for ce. It remains to understand when was he at KTH (if at all). Sasha (talk) 02:30, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi K.,
hopefully, my cold is approaching its end (and I hope yours has done it already). Anyhow, the last thing I have done before getting back to work was expanding the Marcel Riesz article a bit. When you have some time, could you please have a look? (perhaps it needs some editing, but then the Clifford algebra thing could make a nice DYK).
Thanks, Sasha (talk) 05:28, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

More on mathematicians

A new article, critique is welcome: Mikhail Kadets. Sasha (talk) 02:34, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

PS this letter from the site is quite amusing. Sasha (talk) 02:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I am very happy you mentioned the Kharkov/Kharkiv school. Akheizer, Glazman, Lybuich, Gurariy^n, Lomonosov, the Kadets family----so many wonderful mathematicians. The lp l2 distance was especially nice.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 02:03, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Glazman and Boris Levin are really missing articles (as you know perhaps, Glazman committed suicide after being interrogated by the KGB. He is definitely notable at least for the classical textbooks). I worked on the Naum Akhiezer article quite a lot, I am reasonably satisfied (except that it has only references to articles about Akhiezer. There should be a book about Baker-Akhiezer functions which explains his contribution, but I do not manage to find it). The article about Bernstein is a shame for the project (I have added some content, but it should be at least quadrupled).
I do not want to enter the BLP area (too much), it is too complicated for me.
Sasha (talk) 02:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
when you have a minute, please have a look at the DYK hook I have suggested there (is it reasonable?)
Did I garble your message?  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:21, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
I had not known about Glazman. His work on convex minimization should be better known, I think. Well, there was obvious sadness in Lyubich's forward to the problem book, and I suppose that we should be glad that it was published at all in the Brezhnev era.
My heroes from the Kharkov school of analysis never wanted to discuss negative things, apart from one warning that the joke about "God created man with three qualities---communist, honest, intelligent---but allowed each man to have at most 2 of these qualities (and the proof by enumeration)" would have resulted in years in jail.
The Kadets hook is excellent. I shall add a picture of Banach.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
thanks! my WP skills have improved after looking at your articles (and a severe cold made made editing my only activity for a few days). Sasha (talk) 00:05, 17 December 2011 (UTC) and thanks for the advertisement. Sasha (talk) 15:55, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
You made my day! :) (blushing)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:21, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi K.,
thanks for the help! my first DYK is on the main page.
Sasha (talk) 16:50, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
My pleasure, Sasha,
You wrote another great article, about a world-class mathematician who with Achiezer and Glazman led one of the world's great centers of modern analysis---especially functional analysis in the spirit of Kantorovich and von Neumann---with invigoration by numerical analysis, approximation theory, and scientific applications (quantum mechanics, genetics, etc.).
There is more to life and more to Wikipedia than such articles, but both Wikipedia and life are richer for your contributions.
 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:21, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
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