Talk:Typographical Number Theory

From Oleg Alexandrov's talk page

The following discussion was copied from User talk:Oleg Alexandrov. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

What does it mean when a user has a name but it is red-linked? There is a user with these qualities who is being something of a nuisance on Peano axioms. Randall Holmes 18:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This means that this user did not create a user page for himself. Since most serious users do create a user page, the one you are talking about is perhaps not a serious user (or just too new to understand user page creation), which could explain his behavior. --Meni Rosenfeld 18:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Randall, what do you think of Typographical Number Theory, created by the same user? --Jitse Niesen (talk) 19:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I (Holmes) suspect that Typographical Number Theory should be deleted: it is a specific formal implementation of Peano arithmetic found in Hofstadter's book, and an article on it is redundant. But while I am a mathematical logician of long standing, I am a Wikipedian of quite short standing and will defer to others on this kind of question. Randall Holmes 22:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I asked Charles Steward for his opinion, see User talk:Chalst#Typographical Number Theory. I'm afraid that the finer points of logic, like the differences between Peano arithmetic and a implementation of Peano arithmetic, are beyond my understanding. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Hi, thanks Jitse. Why don't we just make it a redirect to Peano arithmetic, and put a brief note about Hofstadter's book somewhere? If the nuisance user keeps recreating the page, then we AfD it, but I'd generally prefer to avoid the bureaucracy. --- --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 02:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with having a page on Hofstadter's formulation, provided it's accurate and provided it doesn't characterize it as mathematically original. There could be lots of readers who have read GEB and would benefit from having an article that puts Hofstadter's version of PA into context and relates it to more standard treatments. --Trovatore 02:30, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with Trovatore that there's nothing wrong with having a page on TNT with the indicated caveats. Randall Holmes 19:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Whoa throwing some serious shade at us unnamed editors ouch ! ~2026-37653-23 (talk) 08:31, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

symbols

It appears that we are having problems with some of the symbols used on this page, particluarly under "Quantifiers", which reads: "There are two quantifiers used: (square box) and (square box)", where clearly symbols were intended. Perhaps someone can confirm whether they also see this problem in a few days, or it may be a temporary issue. User:Graldensblud 21:55, 10 May 2006 (GMT+1)

Call for more examples

Hello. I'm having difficulty with the more challenging translation exercises in Hofstadter's chapter on TNT, particularly 'b is a power of 2' and 'b is a power of 10'. I have been unsuccessful in looking for a reference with the solutions to these puzzles. Perhaps they could be provided here? Bchabala2 (talk) 14:38, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

"b is a power of 2" is equivalent to "b has no prime factors other than 2", or "there is no a such that SSSa is prime and SSSa divides b". I'm sure you could complete the translation into TNT notation from there. "b is a power of 10" is much harder and I haven't solved it yet.... 91.105.3.82 (talk) 00:20, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

But wait if a television is broken usually that causes it to turn off

Maybe im splitting hairs here, but I don’t know that the opposite of the tv is on is the tv is not on isn’t necessarily explained by suggesting it might be broken. Breaking causes TVs to turn off usually. Or certainly if there was a tv in an on-but-yet-broken state (say for example the LEDs got smashed but is still connected to a power source and so is humming quietly and emanating heat) most people still would describe it as being “on”. The opposite of being “on” then kinda is more connected to the removal of power source as the colloquial definition of being “On” vs “Off”. Which maybe means this isn’t an ideal example to explain this other nuance??

Sorry I’m a bit high if that whole thing doesn’t make sense I apologize. 

~2026-37653-23 (talk) 08:29, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

No upon re-reading it I think I’m right, in spite of the credibility question of highness. Imagine I change the line “humming quietly and emanating heat” to “but the audio from the tv show can still be clearly heard despite the tv definitely being broken” that thing would very much not be described by anyone though as an “off” TV, mooting the point. ~2026-37653-23 (talk) 08:36, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Or rather as a “not On” TV, I mean ~2026-37653-23 (talk) 08:37, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Since we need a better example to replace “the tv is on” is negated by “the tv is not on” bc it might be broken

Hmm… my mind immediately jumps to the whole sufficient vs necessary thing so it goes to “it is wet outside” opposite the is negated by “it is not wet outside” rather than instead something like “it is dry outside” vs “it is not raining outside” bc there are reasons other than rain which cause some area to be wet outside say the anti fire sprinklers have gone haywire and are soaking everyone, for example. ~2026-37653-23 (talk) 08:57, 7 July 2026 (UTC)

Hm. But that mixes up inside vs outside. Also a bad example. Help us out here rest-of-internet! ~2026-37653-23 (talk) 08:59, 7 July 2026 (UTC)