Talk:Seki Takakazu

Wrong name

The title of this page is misleading. The correct name of the Japanese mathematician, 関孝和, is Seki Takakazu, not Seki Kowa. Any Japanese do not call him Seki Kowa. I recommend that the users who suspect it ask about it in the Japanese wikipedia page.--123.230.101.175 (talk) 15:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Its not wrong to call him Kowa.In Japan,each chinese character have few readings.ONYOMI,the Chinese reading(but old,when it imported to Japan )and KUNYOMI the Japanese-reading.For 関孝和,Japanese read both Takakazu and Kowa. For old person,sometime its not known how to read.And also it may read in ONYOMI to express one's respect. Though,I think Takakazu is better for Topic name and wright both. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Volclex (talk • contribs) 08:08, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Move discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Consensus seems to be to move the page, so I have gone ahead and done so. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 18:50, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

It has been suggested that this article be moved to Seki Takakazu as this is the most common name (the Japanese article gives this pronunciation, too). Please indicate your opinion below as well as the reasoning for your opinion. Please note that this is not a vote, but a discussion, so explaining your position is importance to determining consensus. Thank you. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support as nom as this is the most common name for this individual. "Kōwa" is just a misreading of the characters for his given name as far as I can tell. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
• the move is ok with me as long as you make sure that seki kowa still exists as a redirect. However if I understand it correctly both names are "correct", since Japanese allows variations in the pronounciation of Kanji. The German Interwiki explains that in detail (de:On-Lesung, see also the posting further up).--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
  • All appropriate redirects will be in place. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
• I am the one who suggested the move. The ja article is Seki Takakazu and an asteroid named after him is 7483 Sekitakakazu. Kowa is onyomi reading of his actual name and it occurs when people refer to notable people like Tokugawa Yoshinobu aka Tokugawa Keiki, Hara Takashi aka Hara Kei, and Itō Hirobumi aka Ito Hakubun. It's called yusokuyomi. But it's informal and not an authentic reading. Why should this article adopt an informal name as the article title while the others don't? Oda Mari (talk) 19:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

  Well I guess Seki is a notable in the sense you describe it, after all he is "the" mathematician of the wasan period. The other reason is that various important sources (in particular the book by Smith/Mikami) use that name/form. The conclusion is here, that article doesn't have to be under Kowa but it can, but more importantly that a redirect must exists, as some people might want to look him up under that name.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:31, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia policy is that "Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article." My Google searches of News, Scholar, and books suggest that both names are about equally widely used, so I support the suggestion to move the article to the more correct name. —Mark Dominus (talk) 19:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
  • I support the move to Takakazu. We need an English article for yusokuyomi. Shinkansen Fan (talk) 11:02, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
    • Do you have any refs for yusokuyomi? There are none in the jawiki article. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:54, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Support: This is a comparatively trivial issue, but it mirrors problems I have confronted elsewhere. For me, this small question has suggested consequences which are perhaps unintended or unexamined.

  The reasoning in favor of changing the title of this article is persuasive, but I wonder if that logic is irrelevant precisely because it mistakenly elevates the value of informed, thoughtful judgement over wiki-conventions.

  I agree that Wikipedia needs good judgement -- of course; however, my guess is that this illustrates the kind of a situation in which such concerns are presumed to be beside the point. WP:Vis a core value we all accept as a guiding principle. It is explained succinctly:

  The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.

  It has been argued that WP:V does not apply to article titles. It has also been suggested that factors other than WP:V have greater weight in article names. I would be inclined to disagree with both propositions or others of their ilk.

  A priori -- as I see it, the reason this article is named Seki Kōwa is because David Eugene Smith identified this historical figure with this rōmaji name; and even if that 1914 decision was "wrong", it is never-the-less construed as "correct" in terms of our skewed wiki-reality, e.g.,

  David Eugene Smith. (1914) A History of Japanese Mathematics, pp. 91-127 (restricted online copy, p. 91, at Google Books)

  It is relevant that other scholars follow Smith's precedent, e.g.,

  Restivo, Sal P. (1992). Mathematics in Society and History: Sociological Inquiries, p. 56 (restricted online copy, p. 56, at Google Books)

  If this article were to be moved and re-named, I would need to understand why? Why is a mere "straw poll" sufficient to overwhelm the weight of credible, published work by scholars whose published good judgement has the effective imprimatur of peer recognition?

  "Review: A History of Japanese Mathematics by David Eugene Smith; Yoshio Mikami," The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 7, No. 111 (May, 1914), pp. 339-341.

  In other words, what I am really asking is this: "How does my approach to this minor matter become an example of barking up the wrong tree?" To be very clear, I don't care about this article per se; but I would hope this thread can become a teachable moment which guides future editing choices for us all.

  7483 Sekitakakazu maybe trumps everything else?

  My natural tendency would be to agree with Oda Mari, but my wiki-experiences have taught a quite different lesson.

  Do I need to explain in different words?

  Can you suggest how I could have been more succinct? --Tenmei (talk) 23:23, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

  • • In this case, as people have already suggested, the reading of his name is incorrect. This has been a problem for a long time with Japanese names due to the fact that the characters used for names can be read several different ways. It is likely someone unfamiliar with Takakazu used the "Kōwa" reading, and someone in the west caught onto that and used it as well (two someones, apparently). As has already been pointed out, both readings of the name appear to be used more or less equally in English writings, so even going by the "most common" won't help here. In this case, it is best to default to the actual and correct reading of the name, for the reasons already spelled out by multiple people, above. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 03:35, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The three most important phrases I take away from this discussion thread are:

(a) " ...it's informal and not an authentic reading." Oda Mari

(c) " ...more importantly that a redirect must exists, as some people might want to look him up under that name." Kmhkmh

(c) " ...best to default to the actual and correct reading of the name..." 日本穣

The crux of my argument is an awkward rejection of the charactristic common sense and good judgement which are hallmarks of Oda Mari's and Nihonjoe's comments across a broad range of topics.

Although persuasive, catchwords like "authentic" and "actual" and "correct" are implicitly a kind of "original research" which leads all of us astray. These conclusory adjectives express what these two editors think is true ... and this is demonstrably harmful in our Wikipedia context (even when, as here, my personal opinion is congruent with theirs).

As I see it, WP:V + WP:NOR require us to parse the issues in a somewhat different manner as we reason together towards a consensus conclusion; e.g.,

• The published 1994 decision by K. Endate who identified a newly discovered main-belt Asteroid as 7483 Sekitakakazu is arguably construed to trump Professor Smith's published 1914 book and its progeny? ... and by the way -- as a convenient aside, this also happens to be more "authentic" and more "correct" and more consistent with ja:関 孝和
• In 1976, the International Astronomical Union honored Ajima Naonobu (安島 直円) by identifying a crater on the moon with his name -- see Naonobu (crater). This Edo period mathematician is also identified by Smith and others as Ajima Chokuyen. The IAU decision-making can be understood to trump the work of Smith and progeny.

Have I explained my point well enough? Yes, this article should be re-named, but not because of the alluring overview rationales Oda Mari and Nihonjoe put foreward -- see WP:Burden? --Tenmei (talk) 17:14, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not original research to use the "actual and correct reading". It's fairly trivial to determine what the correct reading of the name is, and (generally speaking) there is only ever one correct reading of a Japanese name. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 21:20, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

A visual image that is partially in focus, but mostly out of focus in varying degrees is said to need "fine-focus" adjustments.

Further support. There is no disagreement with the ultimate objective of this thread.

For example, the history page of the official website of the Mathematical Society of Japan (MSJ) provides another valid reason for re-naming this article. The timeline here includes special note of the 200th and 300th anniversaries of the death of Seki Takakasu.

Allow me to try to explain in different words: The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. If this non-controversial name change is married to MSJ's cited support or if any other verifying source is identified, then congruence with our core policies is clear to everyone. Why isn't WP:V the "default" position rather than "actual and correct"? WP:V keeps the focal point in clear alignment. Can you see where this leads?

Doc James is on point below: This is not a complicated issue, which is precisely why this thread serves to clarify the underlying rationale and burden. I would have thought that the best place for fine focus is in non-controversial settings like this one, but further discussion becomes perhaps a matter of diminishing returns.

Nihonjoe: Thank you for starting this thread in the way you did. --Tenmei (talk) 00:18, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

• Support I do not see this as a complicated issue. We have both names listed in the lead. If one name is more appropriate in this persons culture and both names are given equal weight by English references let go with the more culturally correct name. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:42, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Broken link

This non-functioning link was removed from the article:

• Gakken: 和算の開祖　関孝和| 江戸の科学者列伝 | 大人の科学.net 　

Perhaps it can be tweaked and then restored? --Tenmei (talk) 16:00, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Correct URL seems http://otonanokagaku.net/issue/edo/vol3/index02.html , where it says Seki was greatly influenced by Chinese mathematical books Introduction to Computational Studies （1299） by Zhu Shijie and Yang Hui suan fa （1274-75) by Yang Hui. (とくに大きな影響を受けたのは、中国から伝わった数学書『算学啓蒙』（1299年）と『楊輝算法』（1274-75年)だった。) --Kusunose 02:16, 17 May 2010 (UTC)