Talk:Henri Poincaré
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[edit] Too much about Einstein?
The page has too much about Einstein, don't you think? As though someone was trying to push a priority dispute. I agree that E = mc^2 has to be explained (and Einstein's different result explaned) but what about the mention of general relativity at the end (it is much better than it was). But there is far too much about a superceded theory of gravity; we still haven't got from Licorne the references for Poincare's gravity theories and only have his paraphrase of Langevin. Licorne never seemed to give a straight answer about what works of Poincare Langevin refered to - they are not in the reference list. Poincare in Science and Method (1908) mentions ONLY a theory of gravity by Lorentz, as though he is ashamed of his own efforts in 1906. If Poincare's gravity theory remains in the page, which we might surmise Poincare wouldn't like, we need just say it is outdated since 1915. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by E4mmacro (talk • contribs) 05:45, March 12, 2006 (UTC)
I definitely agree that, in the scope of Poincare's body of work, and even in comparison to what he achieved before Einstein on Special Relativity, the gravity work is overblown. I don't see it ever mentioned (unlike the growing recognition of his work on SR - which was never really a secret to the experts), while Nordstrom and Lorentz are often mentioned for SR compliant gravity work. I would agree with a stripped down discussion of this, with a single concluding observation that such efforts were supplanted by GR (no real need to even mention Einstein). My rework of the prior GR paragraph was with the philosophy " if this is here, let's make it reflect consensus opinion", but I agree it isn't really needed at all. --Pallen 17:16, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, this is ridiculous. Now that the neo-Nazi is gone, can we get rid of most of it? –Joke 15:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
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- Every now and then I come back to ask to make this article focus on Poincare's contributions in a straightforward way; IOW, I agree. Harald88 01:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
This article is a disgrace! There are some very interesting points about his life, but it's all about relativity. I think this was a small part of his career. It seems that the article has been hijacked by physicists and disregards all his advances in mathematics. GeometryJim 10:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- The Wikipedia way: don't hesitate to add more about mathematics if you like. Harald88 11:26, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Last Universalist
I was reading through the archives of the talk discussion here and an issue that hasn't been resolved yet is the mention of M. Poincaré as the "last universalist". This title is so vague as to be meaningless. Some give the title to John von Neumann (as was mentioned earlier), and others say that even Carl Gauss wasn't a "true universalist" (whatever that means) and give the title of "last universalist" to Gottfried Leibniz.
So can we refrain from making vague claims like "last universalist" and just call him a polymath? That should be enough of a title for any mathematician. --Wild rabbit 15:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 3-body problem
Hello
I just corrected an error about the 3-body or n-body problem. Poincaré did not prove that this problem cannot be solved, indeed Sundman found such a solution. Oub 10:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC):
[edit] Asymptotic expansion
The Asymptotic expansion article mentions that it is also called a Poincaré expansion. I would like to see a mention about his contribution to Asymptotic expansions. Remi Arntzen 00:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What religious belief did Henri Poincare have?
From his writings I would say he was agnostic or deist but cannot find a source to confirm this. Does anyone know of one? The scientist infobox has a field for religion but its been left blank. Lumos3 13:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
- If his religion is not known (or hard to research), it's not notable. Just because this #@!&$ infobox has a field for religion doesn't imply the religious beliefs or non-beliefs of scientists must be mentioned. --Pjacobi 13:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Work on relativity
In line with the statement from the Mathematics Wiki project ( see top of this page) I intend to remove the majority of the section Work on relativity , which has become overlong and disproportionate, to a sepeate article entitled Henri Poincaré and relativity. I will leave a synopsis here. Any comments? Lumos3 15:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
