Talk:Spherical polar coordinates

I reverted changes by Anthony Argyriou because I don't know why he made them. Had I known I would have strived for a compromise. --Paul Wormer 06:45, 16 January 2008 (CST)

I protest. My reasons for the changes were made in the edit summary, and you did not ask me for further detail if you did not understand the issues I had. The reason I changed the article is that you have introduced your own personal point of view into the article, in a way which detracts from the quality of the article. You say "Unfortunately, some American mathematical textbooks..." - the unforuntateness of this is clearly a statement of opinion, and unsupported opinion at that. (The article presents the reason for this supposedly "unfortunate" state of affairs.) The paragraph following the quote is pure editorializing, and isn't very clear, either. My edit also clarified what was meant by "Ref.", and added a wikilink to spherical harmonics, which would presumably be a useful article to link to from this one. But rather than ask, you reverted without question. Anthony Argyriou 00:48, 17 January 2008 (CST)

Dear Anthony, you are turning things upside down. You should have started the discussion by explaining what was bothering you in my text and then we could have come to a text acceptable to both of us. Instead you started by deleting two of my paragraphs with the cryptic (for me) comment "editorializing". I don't understand what you mean by that, apparently it is something negative?

As I understand you now, the word "unfortunately" is the problem? But do you realize the consequences of this rash decision of some textbook authors? Until about 1970 nobody needed to explain θ or φ. Now you must always say in scientific articles something like θ is the angle of the vector r with the z-axis. I also happen to know how Maple got to use the "wrong" convention. In the beginning of the 1980s a computer science grad student was hired to program some additions to Maple relating to spherical polars. The guy had some vague notion about it, and since he didn't want to bother the professors behind Maple, he got a random textbook from the library and without knowing about the huge (believe me) literature using these coordinates and without realizing the extent of his decision he went to work. If you furthermore see the very silly reason why θ and φ were swapped, I think "unfortunate" is a very meek qualification. Anyway, also Eric Weisstein recognizes the fact that the literature on spherical functions covering 200 years cannot be rewritten, so now one must accept a (completely unnecessary) break in definition, if one grows out of the textbook and makes the transition to the real-world literature on spherical functions.

This doesn't mean that I'm not open to improvements/alterations of my text. You, and any other Citizen, may make any suggestions (with reasons) and I will adapt it along the suggested lines. --Paul Wormer 03:16, 17 January 2008 (CST)

PS. I checked the dictionary and found the word editorialize. I didn't know it, now I do: Giving opinions rather than facts. This raises an interesting question: is an editor entitled to an opinion and if so may (s)he express it in a CZ article?--Paul Wormer 03:47, 17 January 2008 (CST)

The short answer to your question ("is an editor entitled to an opinion and if so may (s)he express it in a CZ article?") is no. See the CZ:Neutrality Policy. It is perfectly acceptable to describe the problem, that some textbooks and programs have reversed the order of the coordinates, and to note that much confusion is caused thereby, and to note that historically, only one convention was used. It's also valid to point out that in one subfield, one coordinate system is used by everyone, even by people who ordinarily use the other one. However, if you are going to say that the pedagogical reason for changing the convention is weak (or strong), you should have a reference for that contention. (For that matter, even mentioning that pedagogy is the reason that some people adopted a different convention requires a reference, but you provided that in Weisstein's quote.)

Please also consider your statement: You, and any other Citizen, may make any suggestions (with reasons) and I will adapt it along the suggested lines. in light of CZ:The Author Role#How does collaboration work? and CZ:Be Bold. Anthony Argyriou 20:41, 17 January 2008 (CST)

I removed the word "unconvincing" and replaced it by the reason why the θ-φ swap was made. I quote here Weisstein, but I've known this reason for many years (since my days as applied math professor in Waterloo). However, I cannot refer to this, because I got this knowledge in private discussions with some of my former colleagues in the math department, who were teaching the stuff (and didn't like the fact that they were forced by their textbook to use the "new" convention).

Another thing: I expressed myself poorly by implying that I reserved the right to make changes. Of course, anybody can make changes and deletions in my texts. But this is not WP, I expect the courtesy of explanation why the deletions/changes were made. That is what I tried to express.

And the final thing: this discussion so far was basically about a few words, how about all the mathematical equations and their presentation, no comments there?--Paul Wormer 02:55, 18 January 2008 (CST)

Weisstein is a sufficient reference for the assertion that the change was made for pedagigcal reasons - someone presumably expert said it in writing, that's good enough. The math, to the extent I can follow it without referring back to my old textbooks, appears fine. I haven't gone over it with a fine-tooth comb to make sure there are no sign errors or other typographical mistakes. It might be useful to add a section on how spherical polar coordinates compare to geographic latitude and longitude and astronomical right ascension and declination. Anthony Argyriou 11:03, 18 January 2008 (CST)

And I apologize for being quite so harsh - your English is in general pretty good, and I forget that you are not a native speaker, and may not be entirely familiar with the various idiomatic expressions used to define the culture Larry's trying to build here. Anthony Argyriou 11:13, 18 January 2008 (CST)