tagging - integral, integration, integration-theory

Martin Sleziak

Nov 25, 2011 09:35

Is there a difference between integral and integration? Post asking for help with computing integrals seem to be in both these tags.

Both tag wikis mention computing indefinite integrals.

Srivatsan

@MartinSleziak No idea what the difference is. But tagging them integral makes more sense to me...

Looking in meta.

Jonas Teuwen

Man, it is 10.37 and nobody's here!

(at the group)

Martin Sleziak

See e.g. these questions: math.stackexchange.com/search?q=[integration]+solve and math.stackexchange.com/search?q=[integration]+calculate

Srivatsan

@JonasTeuwen Has tb left already?

Jonas Teuwen

Huh? Tb is a few 1000 km's away :-).

Ilya is in the next building, that's the closest one.

Srivatsan

Nov 25, 2011 09:40

Oh, you were talking about real life when you said no one's here? =)

Jonas Teuwen

Yes.

Srivatsan

Ok. [I was wondering whether tb has left for his vacation or whatever to Vienna or whereever.]

@Martin To make myself clear. My guess is that integration covers "all aspects of integration" including the computation of usual integrals, questions pertaining to integrals but not to do with computation, Lebesgue integrals and so on. integral seems to be a subset of the first tag having to do with the computation part.

But it seems that this is not the convention followed OR that no particular convention is followed. A meta post is in order, perhaps?

Martin Sleziak

@Srivatsan Based on the names, I would think the same. But tag wiki for integration says All aspects of integration, including the definition of the integral and computing indefinite integrals (antiderivatives).

Maybe we can bring it up on meta.

Or wait to see whether some more experienced user appears here and tells us his opinion.

Disclaimer: I do not suggest to go retagging old questions, but if we had some convention/agreement about this, I would know what to do with new and recently edited questions.

Srivatsan

@MartinSleziak I would take the second route. (Further, there are already a few big posts on tagging in meta. I am not sure whether we should create new posts or ask in the existing threads themselves.)

Martin Sleziak

I'm off for lunch. @Srivatsan, please ping me if something relevant will be said here about these tags.

Srivatsan

Nov 25, 2011 09:53

Ok, final point: One idea is to make integral a synonym of integration. That way, we need not touch the old posts.

@JM, If you can give your opinion on the discussion between me and Martin, it'll be great. Thanks!

Martin Sleziak

I'm not too active in calculus questions - so I' definitely not the right person to make suggestions about this.

robjohn

@Tim I don't quite follow. All of those methods of proving Markov are based on E(|x|) = \int_0^\infty P(|x|>t) dt. The probability argument is simply disguising things using the expectation of the indicator function, but they say the same thing.

Martin Sleziak

But maybe dividing post between "low level" - like calculate integral - and "higher level" - like problems with Kurzweil-Henstock integral or integration of Banach space valude functions - might be reasonable.

Srivatsan

@MartinSleziak Well, I think you raised a fair point. (For that matter, I don't have experience either. =)) Let's see what the experienced have to say...

Martin Sleziak

We will see what other people will say.

@Srivatsan BTW JM is not in the room right now: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/36/mathematics I am not sure how this works in chat - will he see your ping?

Srivatsan

Nov 25, 2011 09:59

@MartinSleziak I am kind of positive he will see the ping. Let's see. =)

Martin Sleziak

As far as the experience with calculus and integration questions is concerned, you have calculus badge as I see.

Srivatsan

By the way, @robjohn, if you have something to add, feel free to. =)

Martin Sleziak

So I think you have something to say about this.

Srivatsan

@MartinSleziak That's from answering countless homework questions. ;)

robjohn

@MartinSleziak When JM is next on MSE, the message will show on his profile page.

@Srivatsan I have been replying to comments on some answers. What are we discussing? Let me read back.

Ah, that we don't need integral and integration?

Srivatsan

Nov 25, 2011 10:05

Yes. But a pragmatic proposal is to make the former a synonym of the latter. // That was my proposal, at least =).

robjohn

I think they could be combined and a synonym created.

@Srivatsan yes

Skullpatrol

In my opinion, integration is the process of taking the integral.

just like addition is the process of adding

please correct me if I'm mistaken

Srivatsan

@Skullpatrol Good point, but a better analogy would be integration:integral::addition:sum, I feel.

Skullpatrol

@Srivatsan how about addition, adding, and add or multiplication, multiplying, and multiply; I feel.

Of course this is all context dependent

as is always the case with English

Martin Sleziak

Nov 25, 2011 10:23

@robjohn I tend to same opinion as what you said - but I'll ask anyway. This argument is not strong enough for keeping them both, is it? chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/2530098#2530098

Of course, I am not sure whether that was the original intention when creating the two tags.

For example questions like this, that are more about definition and properties of (some type of) integral and not about calculating integral of a given function: math.stackexchange.com/questions/84092/…

robjohn

@MartinSleziak sort of like integral and integration-theory?

Srivatsan

@robjohn Um, I like the integration-theory tag...

Martin Sleziak

Well, obviously it's empty.

But integration-theory is a better description of what I mentioned above.

robjohn

@MartinSleziak yes, but it is a bit more descriptive than integration

Martin Sleziak

(I'm not really sure if there are many questions like that.)

robjohn

Nov 25, 2011 10:28

@MartinSleziak but that would be the only reason for two tags.

that I can see.

Martin Sleziak

Well, at least the only reason I am able to come up with.

But again, it seems that now we have question which would be suitable for integration-theory under both tags.

This one is tagged integral and asks about the definition of gauge integral: math.stackexchange.com/questions/54953/…

Srivatsan

@MartinSleziak Is there any example? Most questions seem to sway in one direction or another.

^ That would be a wrong application of the integral tag then. =)

Martin Sleziak

And this is not about calculation, but about proving properties of Riemann integral and it is tagged integration. math.stackexchange.com/questions/72844/…

Srivatsan

@MartinSleziak That fits our (i.e., we three) view of the world, right?

Martin Sleziak

@Srivatsan Yes. I wanted to find at least one example in both tags.

So it seems that even if we decided to have two tags - e.g. integral for question concerning calculations and integration-theory for "theoretical" questions, this cannot be obtained by simply renaming integration to integral.

And the argument for keeping two tags, which I suggested, is falling apart...

Srivatsan

Nov 25, 2011 10:35

@MartinSleziak No. Because the current tagging scheme permits computation questions to go to either tags, we will need to retag those at least.

Martin Sleziak

@Srivatsan Yes, that's what I meant. If we want to have some tag like "integration-theory", we would have introduce a new tag and retag some questions. (Or at least tag the new questions correctly.)

Srivatsan

And you pointed out one spuriously tagged (integral instead of integration-theory or integration) post. =)

Martin Sleziak

Well, yes. (I had to look up spuriously in the dictionary.)

But I guess that if I was able to find such post quite easily, there will be a few more similar posts.

Skullpatrol

@Srivatsan I asked this same question to "Ask the Prof." english-online.org.uk/askprof/…

Martin Sleziak

To sum up my point of few: I agree that making the two tags synonyms seems to be a good idea. If a new integration-theory tag (or something similar) will be created, I'll do my best to retag new questions accordingly if I spot an incorrect use.

Srivatsan

Nov 25, 2011 10:43

Synonyms would mean less work, but might not be the "optimal" choice (like we decided to separate abstract-algebra from algebra-precalc). If we take the other option, we will need to decide what to do with the old posts. The new ones can be taken care of, let's hope.

Martin Sleziak

I am relatively new to this "tag creation" business, so I am not sure to which extend there is a need to have consensus in the community, but recently for some tag-changing t.b. pointed it out in meta thread and after his answer got several upvotes, it was considered as reaching a consensus: meta.math.stackexchange.com/q/3187/8297

We discussed it yesterday: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/36?m=2524021#2524021

Wow, that was a nice typo: my point of few.

2

Srivatsan

There you go, I even starred it for you... =)

Skullpatrol

@Srivatsan How did you like the link Srivatsan?

Srivatsan

@MartinSleziak Ok. I think that since we three of us are in some agreement, we will wait for @JM and @Henning's comments tomorrow.

In fact, we are yet to decide which of the two options (keep 2 tags, or synonym+merge) we will propose in meta.

tagging - integral, integration, integration-theory

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