Talk:Richard Arenstorf

Consider removing the discussion and reference to false proof of twin primes

Is it necessary to preserve for all posterity Arenstorf's erroneous proof of the Twin Prime Conjecture? Is there some reason that he is being singled out here, among many other mathematicians that have made (and later withdrawn) similar claims?

In fact it seems to me that he may not meet the standard for inclusion in wikipedia, and perhaps the article should be deleted. What do others think? Plclark 01:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree and so I propose that the article should be deleted.Kope (talk) 21:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about deleting the article, but the erroneous proof certainly had undue prominence in the article. If it were just one sentence in a page-long article, that would be fine with me, but now half the article was about it. So I removed that paragraph. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not so sure either, but let's talk about it. Which of the criteria of WP:PROF are met here? Arenstorf has only 14 MathSciNet publications, only one of which is in what I consider to be a very good journal (Crelle), and none in the very top journals. The only thing which stands out in the article is that he received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal. Clicking on the link, it seems fairly clear that this is not an academic award, so cannot be used to satisfy WP:PROF. On the other hand, this page itself claims that the award is quite prestigious and that Arenstorf is a notable recipient of it. Is this enough to establish notability? Plclark (talk) 06:55, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

For me, it was the combination of the award and that the Arenstorf orbits are named after him. Perhaps I should clarify that with "I'm not so sure" I mean "I don't know" and not "I think the article should be kept". -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 20:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)