Template:Did you know nominations/Sergei Nikolaevich Chernikov

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:04, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Sergei Nikolaevich Chernikov edit

S. N. Chernikov
S. N. Chernikov
  • ... that mathematician Sergei Chernikov was so respected by his teachers, he was already department chair before defending his DSc?
  • ALT1:*... that mathematician Sergei Chernikov taught in his local high school for years before returning to school and making significant breakthroughs in infinite group theory?

Created by Oceanchaos (talk). Self-nominated at 22:03, 10 July 2016 (UTC).

  • A small thing, but the hook claim for the main hook needs to have a footnote on its sentence, not just later in the same paragraph. (The footnote later does support most of the claim. I suspect that the actual degree is not a Ph.D. but a Candidate of Sciences, and that the source translated that to Ph.D.) The part about the reason for it being because of the respect of his teachers needs to be in the article and sourced. And ALT1 doesn't really match what our article says: the hook says high school, the article says "a school for workers", and there is no mention in the article of how long he taught there. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:59, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks David Eppstein for reviewing this! You are quite correct, I inferred the "respected by his teachers"; the source only says that he was made Department Chair the year before earning his DSc. I updated this section of his biography to reflect that. The degree in question is neither a PhD (which he already had), nor a Candidate of Science (which is equivalent), but the USSR-specific Doctor of Sciences (Doctor Nauk; added link in article as well). His PhD was also remarkable in that he and his advisor were at different institutions (Saratov State and Moscow University respectively). How about this instead:
  • ALT2: ... that mathematician Sergei Chernikov already had the first of his five department chairs before defending his DSc in 1940?
About the alt1 hook: you are right, I couldn't find any source that explains which school, nor even what level, he taught at (though I did find one that claims earned the equivalent of a Bachelor's Degree while teaching there through correspondance courses, so it must have been a few years). I withdraw the alt1-hook. Sorry for the confusion. This is my first DYK; I'll try to do better next time. Oceanchaos (talk) 02:18, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
I meant that the 1938 degree (called by the article a PhD) was a Cand. Sci., not the 1940 one. Anyway, good to go with ALT2, which besides the sourcing issue is I think a better hook. Thanks for the improvements. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:44, 20 July 2016 (UTC)