text:
Talk:Garry Kasparov

Infobox image, again
A slow-motion edit war is in progress over the choice of Infobox image. This should be resolved here, in the talk page. The use of the older (2015) image was the outcome of a discussion that is now in Talk:Garry Kasparov/Archive_2.

Informally, I think the older image is a bit better-looking, but the newer (2023) image is not bad, and, after all, it is newer. I know that other considerations, such as photo quality, which I am not necessarily competent to judge, also sometimes come into play. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:53, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree the older image is better-looking for the bio. ( better.) --IHTS (talk) 05:07, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
 * As the person that assessed the article for GA, I agree that the 2015 photo is perfect and need not be replaced. The origin of those making that change is clear enough Billsmith60 (talk) 09:22, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
 * A decent-quality pic of Kasparov from 2017 has been uploaded by user Artem G. I've no objection to it if no one else has Billsmith60 (talk) 16:57, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I wasn't aware of this discussion or edit war about the photo. I was reverted, but I still think that 2017 photo is better and is of better quality. Artem.G (talk) 05:25, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Opinions evidently differ about the 2017 photo compared with the 2015 photo. In the 2021 discussion, a version of the 2017 photo was enthusiastically replaced by the 2015 photo, not by me, but with my concurrence.  Both the 2017 photo and the 2015 photo have about the same resolution; 2015 is taken from an angle and distance that, it appears to me, better shows his face (plus, I like the smile).
 * The recent edit war involved a very recent photo. As he ages, we may find ourselves abandoning older photos even if they're better-looking, just because they're older.  But for now, the 2015 and perhaps 2017 photos are preferable to the very recent one. Bruce leverett (talk) 17:58, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Nationality, again
The "country" parameter in the Infobox should NOT mention Croatia. We are going with WP:CONTEXTBIO here. The most recent earlier discussion of this is at. Bruce leverett (talk) 20:52, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

World no. 1 for how many months?
"Kasparov was ranked world no. 1 for a record 255 months overall". I can't find a source for this. Actually the Wikipedia page it links to says 243 months. I didn't edit it because I don't know which one is correct. Bramentent (talk) 12:35, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

 * Fixed, with a reference further down. The other Wikipedia article is incorrect, obviously. Thanks for posting about this Billsmith60 (talk) 11:47, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Captions
It's not normal for a caption to be comprised of a sentence. Hence, all are now clauses only. Any tweaks should retain that feature for consistency throughout the article Billsmith60 (talk) 11:07, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

 * Where are you getting the idea that a full sentence in a caption is "not normal"?
 * The language of MOS:CAPTION is:"Most captions are not complete sentences but merely sentence fragments which should not end with a period. However, if any complete sentence occurs in a caption, then every sentence and every sentence fragment in that caption should end with a period."This doesn't prohibit or even discourage complete sentences. That guidance also says that captions should be "succinct", and this encourages captions that are just sentence fragments; but modifying a sentence to make it a non-sentence, e.g. by replacing "wore" with "wearing", doesn't make it more succinct.
 * In my limited experience editing an FA and some GA's, I had never come across any kind of inhibition against using full sentences in captions, where appropriate. Bruce leverett (talk) 14:50, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree. However, I noted "consistency" throughout the article: that's the point of my reversions, which read perfectly fine now and adhere to what you quoted above. I see no lack of "succinctness" (an awful noun) therein. Also, as an academic editor (rtd), I guarantee that it is far more usual practice to do without a full-stop in a caption by avoiding a finite verb. Of course, you have the same rights and obligations as me and can restore a mix of clauses and sentences if you wish Billsmith60 (talk) 10:30, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not having a dig, Bruce, and won't be losing any sleep over this either. Ta Billsmith60 (talk) 12:50, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Favorite openings has bad claims poorly supported
"Kasparov's favourite opening systems were the Queen's Indian with White and variations of the Sicilian Defence with Black."

What is the claim his favorite opening system was the QID as White supposed to mean? It's utter nonsense. The claim that his favorite opening as Black is the Sicilian has much better foundation, but if I was White in a thousand games with Kasparov he wouldn't play his favorite opening as Black a single time and chess players will understand why. We must be better than this.

Not only are the claims bad, the sourcing is terrible. The article has https://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/1791/ which I must read in Google translation because I can't read Russian, but I don't see anything in that article supporting any claims about Kasparov's favorite openings. Can anyone explain how that link supports the claims? The other citation is https://www.365chess.com/players/Garry_Kasparov. Ugh, a database link. I have a problem with using games databases searches to make claims in articles and I think this is generally not OK. In this case the page says that Kasparov has 37 games as White in the QID. So the support we have for the nonsensical claim that the QID was Kasparov's favorite opening as White is that he played it 37 times out of 2533 total games. I didn't take the time to determine precisely how many of those 2533 games were as White, but we won't be too far off by assuming 50%. That suggests that Kasparov faced the QID in a little less than 3% of his games as White.

The issue here is that the 365Chess database is reporting based on ECO codes. That isn't very helpful here since as most chess players know ECO codes aren't of equal "girth". The Sicilian is divided into 80 ECO codes while the QID has only 8 codes. That illustrates how the issue is especially acute as the more generally popular openings are split into more ECO codes and thus appear less popular than they are when used in a dumb games database counting way as we do in this article. We might be able to support a claim that Kasparov played more games as White using ECO code 12 than any other ECO, but that would tell the chess cognoscenti little and the general Wikipedia reader less than nothing. Quale (talk) 00:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The Queen's Indian was certainly one of the most popular resonses to 1.d4 when Kasparov was active, but it's an opening that Black plays, not White. It's a bit silly to say it was Kasparov's "favourite opening with white". MaxBrowne2 (talk) 02:31, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I had a little discussion of "favorite openings" with during or soon after the GA process.  It's in my talk page if you are curious.
 * I agree that "favorite opening" is a phrase that does not work as well for Kasparov playing against the QID as it might for, e.g., Morphy playing the Evans Gambit. Anyway, the title of the section is, "Contributions to opening theory", and it's sort of irrelevant what his favorite openings were, it only matters what contributions he made.
 * In the 80's and maybe the 90's Kasparov played some important games in the variation of the QID with 4.a3. A variation was even named for him; our article Queen's Indian Defense cites a book about that variation by Mikhail Gurevich.
 * I also agree that citing Chess365 or chessgames.com to make claims about someone's opening repertoire is not legitimate. Bruce leverett (talk) 04:26, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I removed the sentence making claims about Kasparov's favorite openings. Something can be added to the article about this if it is supported by WP:RS and if it makes sense.  If there were a verified quote where Kasparov said the QID was his favorite opening to play on the white side then it could be reasonable to put that in the article.  But that claim could never be established by citing a games database search. Quale (talk) 06:20, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Notable games
, : It would be a good idea for this article to have a "notable games" section. Many of our articles about chess players have such sections, and notable games are a well-established feature of articles about chess players in print encyclopedias, such as Hooper and Whyld's Oxford Companion to Chess. However such a section must obey the usual Wiki rules. Look for a reliable source that says that the game is notable; it's especially good if you can quote the source as to why the game is notable, and if you can quote the annotations. For this purpose chessgames.com is not a reliable source, because it is full of user-generated content. It's handy to link to the chessgames.com score so that readers can click through the game, but you have to have another source to vouch for the notability and the annotations.

I have not ventured to add a "notable games" section to this article, because I don't have a good sense of which of his games are notable. So I was happy to see the attempt by, and I would encourage that editor to keep trying. Bruce leverett (talk) 22:10, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

 * You saying this means a lot as it was my first edit. Thank you so much. Another admin said that the edit was in "point of view" and that it was in the wrong section. Please if you can explain that to me, it'll mean a lot as I'm a first-time editor. Can you also give me an idea of a good source to use so that next time, my edit won't be taken down? Chijioke2007 (talk) 00:42, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * WRT Notable Games, "POV" refers to deciding for yourself that some game is notable, rather than relying on published sources. As I read the comments in the chessgames.com page about Karpov-Kasparov, I realized that there were several commenters who thought that that game and Kasparov-Topalov were his best, so I would guess that you were not pushing an unpopular POV, but it's necessary to find some better source, as I mentioned.
 * To find sources for chess articles, the easiest places to look are online chess news sources such as Chessbase, and (more recently) chess24 and chess.com. The era when Kasparov was at his peak was roughly 1980's to 2000, and it may be that his earlier spectacular games were only covered in print (i.e. magazines and books). This will make it harder to search for them, but you yourself don't have to solve the entire problem: just come up with, say, two good games, and other readers with better libraries can come up with other games.
 * I'm not sure what the other editor meant by "wrong section". You put the Notable games where I would expect them.  I'll let him clarify what he meant. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:06, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the help. I've improved the edit according to your advice. Maybe whenever you have time, you can see whether you like it, Chijioke2007 (talk) 00:45, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I think that you have met the requirements. Language like "one of the most famous combinations ever" is MOS:PUFFERY -- read that guideline carefully, it's important for biographical articles like this one!  You'll want to tone down that kind of stuff for both games.
 * Some Notable Games include the score and a diagram. That might not be a bad idea here, but it's a lot of work, it's OK to leave it for later.
 * Thanks for this contribution! Garry Kasparov has really needed it. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:28, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello all. See the most recent edit summary for why these changes were reverted again. Who defines how notable a game is? However, the new editor should be able to introduce a sub-heading something like 'Some notable games' at the end of 'Assessment and legacy' – my best guess at location – but not merely two games. A minimum of five surely, referenced as attempted so far. Regards Billsmith60 (talk) 09:09, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * 1).I feel like what defines a notable game is the amount of quality shown and the games that I put there are extremely high quality and are probably among the best games ever played. If you were to go through them and see the public opinion of them, you would agree.
 * 2.) I was planning on adding more games and even if I didn't, then surely others with better knowledge would contribute.
 * 3.) Out of the 17 World Champions, 12 have Notable Games as a totally separate section. The remaining 5 don't have that section at all. Why would we break the trend with Garry Kasparov?
 * With all due respect, because of the reasons stated above, I don't believe that the edit should have been reverted Chijioke2007 (talk) 10:40, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * As with everything in Wikipedia, we judge the notability of something by the extent of coverage in reliable sources. We do NOT judge it by the "quality" of the games.  As unheralded and usually anonymous Wikipedia editors, we are presumed to be unqualified to judge quality; thus we MUST rely on our sources.
 * found sources for both games, and they look like good sources to me. If you  or anyone else does not think that these sources are reliable enough for the purpose, that's another argument.  But since you did not make that argument, there is no basis for calling this Notable games section POV.  I will take the liberty of restoring it when I finish posting this comment.
 * I hasten to acknowledge that I thought some of the language used by was MOS:PUFFERY, which is a form of POV. I would encourage him to correct that issue, as I indicated in an earlier comment, before I or someone else jumps in to correct it ourselves.  Relying on our sources does not include relying on their puffery.  It's OK for chess.com or chessbase to publish over-the-top praise of some game, but we're an encyclopedia, and it's not OK for us.
 * The original placement of the new section was not in the Personal Life section, but after it. That is, the headings for these sections were at the same level, and they appear consecutively in the table of contents.  If there is any written guidance (e.g. in WP:CHESS) about the placement of a Notable Games section, I haven't seen it, so we're just using our own judgment.  Your idea of putting it under assessment/legacy looks plausible to me, but other chess biographies have put it at the level of the other major sections, so I don't want to take sides.  In any case, if you think the section was incorrectly placed, the appropriate response would be to move it, not to delete it. Bruce leverett (talk) 13:50, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay, I understand now. I'll try and correct the language used in the section. At the same time, I'll like to apologize for my incorrect assumption as to what makes a notable game. I'll try to correct this in future chess edits. Chijioke2007 (talk) 16:49, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It's been moved to where I suggested it should be. Hopefully that works now. Regards Billsmith60 (talk) 20:23, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Garry Kasparov


text:
Talk:Golden ratio

Reference to "Zometoy" product
The reference to "Zometoy" is erroneous; the actual product is "Zometool". 2603:8080:4E05:7812:0:0:0:BA4 (talk) 12:44, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

 * "Zometoy" was Steve Baer's original (very low production) toy made of wooden dowels and drilled (?) nodes. Take a close look at the picture. Zometool was a later company by Marc Pelletier and Paul Hildebrandt which took the same concept and figured out how to make a better version of it out of injection molded plastic. For some about the history, see http://people.tamu.edu/~ergun/hyperseeing/2018/06/FASE/buehler2018.pdf –jacobolus (t) 15:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Summing the Contained Fraction
It is probably quite, but not sufficiently, well known, that the continued fraction expression, Ø = 1+1/(1+  1/(1+1/(1+1/(1+1/( ... infinitely, is easy to evaluate as a short algebraic expression.  The part to the right of the gap has value Ø, so we can curtail the expression to Ø = 1+1/(1+Ø); multiply to a quadratic ....

That may be worth mentioning. 94.30.84.71 (talk) 13:47, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

 * Or not worth mentioning. JRSpriggs (talk) 00:56, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
 * When the article says "The formula $\varphi = 1 + 1/\varphi$ can be expanded recursively to obtain a continued fraction for the golden ratio" that is the converse of your statement. But notice that each step in going from one form to the other is reversible, so these are essentially the same idea. If you like you can write this explicitly as $$\varphi = 1 + \cfrac{1}{1 + \cfrac{1}{1 + \ddots}} \iff \varphi = 1 + \frac1\varphi.$$ (Under the assumption that $$\varphi > 0.$$) I think the version in the article is fine though. –jacobolus (t) 01:01, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Baffling diagram
I'm new to the golden ratio. Got onto it via the tv show Astrid. The main Wikipedia page on the subject golden ratio has a diagram of a rectangle being divided into a square and the ratio is supposed to be illustrated, but the text below the diagram is baffling to me. DMTerp (talk) 04:28, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

 * @DMTerp The diagram says:
 * A golden rectangle with long side $1=a$ and short side $1=b$ (shaded red, right) and a square with sides of length $1=a$ (shaded blue, left) combine to form a similar golden rectangle with long side $a + b$ and short side $1=a$. This illustrates the relationship $a + b⁄a = a⁄b = φ.$
 * Which part do you find baffling? The setup is that the rectangle with sides a and b is similar to (has the same aspect ratio as) the rectangle with sides a + b and a. If this is the case, then the ratio of a to b is the golden ratio. –jacobolus (t) 08:21, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * There is too much waffle between "A golden rectangle" and "(shaded red)". For those of us familiar with the topic, it's obvious. But the diagram would baffle a lot of people. Unfortunately, that's rather the point of an encyclopedic article. Johnuniq (talk) 09:26, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what you mean. What you call "too much waffle" is just directly describing which rectangle we're talking about: the one with sides a and b, which is shaded red and toward the right, as compared afterward with the rectangle of sides a + b and a. I don't think this can be meaningfully simplified, and if someone can't follow this caption they probably aren't part of the intended roughly middle school level or above audience. –jacobolus (t) 00:13, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I see the problem I was having. The adjacent text reads “a golden rectangle ..
 * may be cut into a square and a smaller rectangle . .” Then I looked at the diagram and read its smaller font text and didn’t realize that it was the same explanation backwards. I’m 86 now and it seems to take me longer to “ get it”. 107.200.90.207 (talk) 17:26, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * We could swap the order in the caption as well. I don't personally think it makes any significant improvement in clarity, but it also doesn't hurt anything. It could instead say something like:
 * A golden rectangle with long side $a + b$ and short side $1=a$ can be cut into two pieces: a similar golden rectangle with long side $1=a$ and short side $1=b$ (shaded red, right) and a square with sides of length $1=a$ (shaded blue, left). This illustrates the relationship $a + b⁄a = a⁄b = φ.$
 * –jacobolus (t) 00:16, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Short description
There appears to be an idea that the "short description" is strictly limited by character count, for something to do with the technologically handicapped who can't see a full screen. In which case I can't get too worked up about it, but fwiw... I don't think a proper description could be shorter than the first sentence of the lead. The "symbolic version" ((a + b) : a :: a : b) is not very transparent to the non-mathematical, but any very condensed prose version is unlikely to be understood by anyone who couldn't understand the symbolic version. I suggest another possibility, which is something like "A ratio (approx. 1.618) which has been ascribed mystic properties." The point is that the purpose of the short description has to be (I think) to confirm to those who have heard of it that it is indeed what they are thinking of, or to hint to those who haven't why this article exists; the purpose is not to give a mathematical definition of its value.

Aside: a lot of good work has been done on these number articles, but I cannot help feeling that a problem is that while there is more than enough mathematical expertise (which is needed of course) there is a slight shortage of sensitivity to the English language. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:54, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

 * The "mystic properties" part is bullshit though (as the article takes pains to explain). Any such "mystic properties" are not really of special mathematical or cultural significance.
 * The most important and characteristic feature of this ratio is that it is the ratio of the diagonal to the side of the regular pentagon, which is why it features prominently everywhere that 5-fold symmetry appears. Because of the strong law of small numbers (in this case meaning small algebraic numbers based on a polynomial of low degree with small integer coefficients), it also appears in other places, e.g. the solution to various combinatorial problems, which don't at first glance have a direct relation to 5-fold symmetry (but can usually be explained/interpreted that way with some effort). –jacobolus (t) 08:06, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
 * We really shouldn't be trying to find short descriptions that take mathematical understanding to decode or that point to the most salient properties of the topic. That is not what short descriptions are for. They're mainly for things like: in mobile, you search for something, and you get multiple results that match your search. Which one do you want to read? So they should be short, and they should disambiguate the topic, without just repeating the title, but they are not intended to be a rigorous and completely unambiguous description of the topic. I think "Number, approximately 1.618" is better for this than either trying to spell out the extreme and mean ratio or trying to describe some geometric property that fits the golden ratio. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:13, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Correct. I just used the Wikipedia app on a phone to search for "golden". It showed "Golden ratio / Number, approximately 1.618" with the image from the infobox. That is perfect for finding the correct article to read. The short description is for disambiguation. It is not a Google snippet or an alternative to reading the article. Johnuniq (talk) 08:30, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I think "Number, approximately 1.618" is good enough for the purposes of a short description. (I also think that "short description" might not be the best short description of what a short description is supposed to do.) XOR'easter (talk) 16:20, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Just to comment briefly again: I said "ascribed" magic properties; that is true and notable, even though of course the magic properties are nonsense. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:11, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 January 2024
In "Golden ratio conjugate and powers" equation ending -0.618033 needs to have an ellipsis added -0.618033... 2605:A601:A962:AC00:549:D9C7:F671:4843 (talk) 04:24, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I did not found any such equation without an ellipsis. Possibly, a horizontal scroll was needed for seeing the ellipsis. D.Lazard (talk) 09:13, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 January 2024
Pleas add the hexadecimal form to the infobox. More specifically, add 1.9E37&thinsp;79B9&thinsp;7F4A&thinsp;7C15..., which will fit well and produce
 * Hexadecimal 1.9E37 79B9 7F4A 7C15...

The digits are the result of a routine WP:CALCulation with the dc commands, which produces   (the last digit isn't trustworthy). MOS:HEX appears to prefer upper-case letters A–F.

The hexadecimal form is useful in software development because it's used by various hashing functions as the "most irrational" number. See RC5,

Providing 64 bits after the decimal place helpfully matches the largest common numeric data type. This is one more digit than is provided in decimal, compensated by saving one space due to grouping the digits in fours rather than threes. 97.102.205.224 (talk) 03:01, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

 * I'm looking at the articles in which the infobox is also used: Square root of 2, Apéry's constant, Square root of 3, Square root of 5, Lieb's square ice constant, etc and it seems the hexadecimal is not provided on any of these entries. – The Grid  ( talk )  14:31, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It was recently removed from a bunch of these (including this article at special:diff/1190623333), because it is not considered important enough to focus attention on. There was some meta discussion at WT:WPM (2023 Dec) § Mathematical constant infobox. –jacobolus (t) 15:53, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * 97.102.205.224: If you are putting this in software, you should probably write it in as (1 + sqrt(5))/2, which is much more legible than a string of hexadecimal digits and should be correctly rounded if you can trust sqrt. In most contexts your programming language will be smart enough to just do this computation once (e.g. at compile time). If you are concerned with fibonacci hashing, the appropriate place to include a hexadecimal string is there, not in the infobox here. –jacobolus (t) 16:03, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Er, except that the computation you suggest will generally be done in IEEE double precision (1+52 bits of mantissa) rather than in 64-bit integer math. There's a reason I did my computation in an arbitrary-precision math package.
 * The value is used is numerous integer arithmetic contexts (see the four links provided in the original request, or do your own web searches for "9E3779B9" and "61C88647") where it's implicitly divided by 232 or 264. And such applications often require, for compatibility, a bit-exact value; rounding error is not acceptable. A hex literal plus a comment is an easier way to get the exact value desired.  (This is also the reason that Hexadecimal was added to C99, IEEE 754-2008, and POSIX.)
 * (Tangent: In general, adding an exact integer to an already-rounded square root risks double rounding if the addition increases the exponent and shifts lsbits off the mantissa. For $φ$ and binary floating-point specifically, this will not happen because $2 < √5 < 1+√5 < 4$, so both have the same exponent and no such shift will take place.  Division by 2 is an exponent adjustment with no additional rounding.)
 * One simple application is low-discrepancy sequences. It turns out that the additive sequence $k×i mod 1$, for $i = 1, 2, 3, ...$ achieves the lowest possible discrepancy (most uniform possible distribution on the unit interval) if $k = φ$.  This can, and often is, done in integer arithmetic by scaling by 232 and taking advantage of the automatic modulo-232 operation of integer arithmetic.
 * This is the basis of Hash function.
 * However, you have to be sure to round to an odd value when converting to integer form (so that the multiplication by $k$ is invertible modulo-232; see Weyl sequence), an operation which is not easily achieved in a compile-time computable expression. If you don't allow for this, you might get φ−1 = 0x0.9E37 79B9 7F4A 7C15 F... rounded to ...7C16, which wouldn't do at all. And if you are using 64-bit words, not even IEEE double will provide enough precision.
 * This property also makes it a good multiplier for hashing purposes. (TAOCP vol. 3 2nd ed. pp. 517–518 & Ex. 9 p. 550).
 * The binary form of this particular value does come up surprisingly often, which is why I thought it worth including. Ultimately it's an Inclusionism judgement.  The nice thing about an infobox is that it's easy to skim and ignore irrelevant details; you're not reading it linearly like main article prose.  I do note that Special:Search/0x9E3779B9 already shows seven existing appearances in Wikipedia (plus one I just added to Fibonacci hashing).  And Knuth judges it useful enough to include a table of the binary (octal, actually) forms of numerous mathematical constants in TAOCP (vol. 3 2nd ed. pp. 748 et seq.).
 * (The linked debates as to whether mathematical constants should even have infoboxes is a larger issue I prefer not to get dragged into. My edit request is assuming an infobox exists.  If people would like a larger edit request, I could rework the above application examples into a new subsection of, as I see it's not mentioned at present.  But to do a good job would be a wider-ranging edit; e.g. the name "most irrational number" is best mentioned in  near the discussion of the Hurwitz inequality.)
 * 97.102.205.224 (talk) 20:11, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * such applications often require, for compatibility, a bit-exact value; rounding error is not acceptable – if you have a "reliable source" claiming this, that would be a good argument for including it as part of the section . Some of the people chatting at the stack exchange links you posted earlier claim that the precise constant is largely irrelevant as long as it is sufficiently mixed up.
 * Low-discrepancy sequences like your link are calculated in floating point and are not sensitive to slight roundoff error in the 16th decimal place. I liked that blog post, tried to promote it, recommended it to many people, and corresponded with the author, but it's not a reliable source by Wikipedia standards. If you can find peer-reviewed sources about that, it would perhaps be worth adding a new subsection to (edit: it's discussed at, though would benefit from a source other than a blog post). The n-dimensional generalization is out of scope for this article, but the 1-dimensional version based on the golden ratio is discussed at  and Golden angle.
 * The nice thing about an infobox is that it's easy to skim – the bad thing about an infobox is that it's a magnet for heaps of marginally relevant trivia. –jacobolus (t) 20:26, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Er, yes, for strictly internal hashing, the exact constant is not too critical, although there are arguments (Knuth has the most thorough treatment) that 1/φ or its negative are the best values. There have been some notable failures due to oversimplified constants chosen to be easier to multiply by.  (ISTR this happened in the Linux kernel history... aha, see https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/include/linux/hash.h?id=689de1d6ca95b3b5bd8ee446863bf81a4883ea25 )
 * However, some hashing is part of an externally-visible interface, e.g. the symbol table hash in Executable and Linkable Format or some serialization formats. The former don't happen to use φ internally, but there exist rigidly-defined hash functions using φ which could be used in an external-facing application; Boost (C++ libraries)'s hash_combine function comes to mind, but I don't have a specific application example where that hash value is exported.  It's certainly plausible that one exists.
 * (The crypto applications of course require bit-exact values, but they're random-looking nothing-up-my-sleeve numbers rather than caring about the numeric value.)
 * A semi-crypto application is the Java SplitMix64 PRNG. Is uses a Weyl sequence with 264/φ as the increment, and officially supports portable deterministic-seeded applications, where the same seed is expected to produce the same output on different systems.
 * One thing that's annoying about the somewhat deliberate pace of Wikipedia discussions is that I forget things between rounds. I know this whole thing started when I came to this page expecting to find the hex value for some reason, but I've since forgotten what it was!
 * I will claim that the scaled integer form of φ is used in computer software more than any other irrational mathematical constant. In floating point, of course, π and 2π win hands-down.
 * (Trivia found as part of my research for this discussion: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/100485-most-irrational-number )
 * 97.102.205.224 (talk) 22:48, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but if a bit-exact value is needed and it has to be rounded to an error in the last place because of extra constraints, then someone who needs to know this should be finding it in a specification, not copying it out of a loosely related Wikipedia article. Indeed, the latter is certain to cause an error in this instance! It seems like a decent argument for adding a more specific section about the application to hashing though, and perhaps including 1 or 2 of these hexadecimal values there. –jacobolus (t) 22:55, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned, I could adapt the preceding discussion into a whole new subsection (two, actually) under the applications section. It would, however, be a lot more work to cut and paste in.  Also, I'd very much like to introduce the phrase "most irrational number", as it combines a fairly lay-accessible concept with a mathematically interesting property.
 * The issue is already referred to in and, but I'm not sure if I should expand one or the other, or pull some of it out to a separate section.  Since it would come up again in any discussion of Fibonacci hashing, a separate section seems appropriate, but moving text around at much makes posing an edit-request diff to a talk page a real PITA.
 * Aha! Special:Diff will accept revision IDs for two separate articles!  The syntax is "Special:Diff/1181263486/1194109625" (not linked because that's not a useful example).  So I can come up with something in the Draft namespace.  There don't appear to be any good patch/merge tools in Wikipedia, but at least the common ancestor would be clearly labelled.
 * Given that, do you have any suggestions for organization? I'm inclined to introduce the phrase, without references, in a summary in the lead section, and then fill in the details in the later sections, with  containing the formal details, while, (not yet written)  and  will describe themselves as applications of the principle.
 * The big question is, should I go for it? (If you say yes, you're volunteering to be nagged to review it when it's finished.)  97.102.205.224 (talk) 00:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't really like the "most irrational number" label, since I think it easily leads to misconceptions about what it really means. As you noticed, the article already says "The consistently small terms in its continued fraction explain why the approximants converge so slowly." This could be elaborated but is precise and not misleading, and doesn't overhype the observation. (A different way to look at the same observation is to notice that any rational number is extremely hard to approximate by rational numbers other than itself; the golden ratio is the irrational number closest to sharing this property, so in this sense it is the "least irrational number"!) @David Eppstein what do you think? –jacobolus (t) 00:45, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * As for the annoyance of making edit requests: sorry about the semi-protected status of this article. It got that way because this otherwise is a magnet for vandals and cranks. I made a page at Talk:Golden ratio/sandbox that you are welcome to use for whatever chunks of draft text you like: copy whole sections there, move them around, rewrite them, etc. Or you could also consider making an account; once you have had it for 4 days and made 10 edits, you can freely edit semi-protected pages, make new pages, etc. –jacobolus (t) 01:14, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I think "most irrational" is misleading. Many people would think of it as some kind of qualitative distinction; that transcendental numbers are more irrational than algebraic numbers and that somehow this is the most transcendental among the transcendental numbers (obviously untrue). And "hardest to approximate" is also misleading, because there is no computational difficulty in approximating it. Instead I would prefer phrasing like "least accurately approximated by rationals". —David Eppstein (talk) 01:47, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * H'm... I agree that just by itself, the moniker "most irrational number" is easy to misinterpret (as David Eppstein has noted), but with an appropriate explanation (which obviously this article would have) it's always been a useful mnemonic for me. I think jacobolus's example comparing the best rational approximation of an irrational number with the second-best approximation of a rational number is starting out biased.  Saying that "exact isn't an approximation" is basically arguing that "zero isn't a number", and I thought we'd put that to bed at least a sesquimillenium ago.
 * Even if you think it's misleading, it is a widely-used phrase, and should be addressed for that reason alone. I'll definitely keep the phrase "least accurately approximated by rationals" in mind!
 * Anyway, it's the wee hours here and I'm for bed. I'll have to pause my side of this discussion for a while. 97.102.205.224 (talk) 02:29, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It's unfortunate that the more accurate phrasing is also significantly less catchy. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:20, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
 * What I'm thinking about is not "second best approximation", but instead something like: if you start plotting rational numbers, there is something like a "hole" around every integer where no other rational numbers can fit until they start to have very big denominators; to a lesser extent there is a similar "hole" around every rational number; the simpler the number, the bigger the hole (Ford circles give one visual explanation for this phenomenon). The number which creates the next biggest kind of hole around itself, besides integers and rational numbers, is the golden ratio. The denominators of rational approximations to the golden ratio at any particular level of approximation grow more quickly than for any other irrational number, while still growing less quickly than for the "second best" approximation to any rational number. So in a certain sense the golden ratio is balanced on the edge between "rational" and "irrational", just on the irrational side. This is why it might be in a certain sense called the "least irrational". A related idea: the golden ratio is the algebraic irrational number with by some definition the simplest minimal polynomial; it can't get any simpler without being rational. –jacobolus (t) 08:07, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Clearly this is not an uncontroversial edit. PianoDan (talk) 18:22, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, clearly. Didn't expect that, but it appears to be a good discussion. 97.102.205.224 (talk) 20:11, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone else have thoughts about this? –jacobolus (t) 23:01, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

 * Yes, I don't think this sort of thing belongs. WP is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a geeks' handbook; if we put in a hex approximation, why not add octal and binary? This is all stuff that can be calculated easily if required, and no sensible programmer would rely on a value in WP anyway. Imaginatorium (talk) 03:56, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Negative Reciprocal of Golden Ratio
The golden ratio can be calculated from "(1+√5)/2." Using the positive value for √5 gives 1.6180. Using the negative value for √5 gives the negative of the reciprocal of 1.6180, -0.6180. Is this just a coincidence? Does this have any significance? 2601:18E:C700:4B7F:9592:6C05:1FCC:C6FA (talk) 16:52, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It is not a coincidence. These are the roots of a quadratic equation. The sum of the roots is 1 which is the negative of the linear term's coefficient. The product of the roots is −1 which is the constant term. So the equation is x2 −x −1 = 0. Just what we need. JRSpriggs (talk) 02:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
 * To put it another way, the golden number is the unique number with this "coincidence"; that is what makes it special. Kinda like asking whether it is a coincidence that the Equator is the one latitude where the duration of daylight never varies. —Tamfang (talk) 17:16, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Simple Construction of a Golden Rectangle using two 2x1 Rectangles:
Constructing a golden rectangle using two 2x1 rectangles. Width = 2, Height = 1 +√5.

Align the diagonal (√5) of one of these rectangles (A) with the short side of the other rectangle (B) such that the sum of these two elements is now = 1 + √5. This line together with the long side of rectangle (B) form two sides of a Golden Rectangle.

This practical method was developed at a local MenzShed for use by woodworkers with no maths.

We have a diagram which we can't seem to upload. HoneAtHome (talk) 01:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

 * It's not new, but I agree a diagram would be appropriate. —Tamfang (talk) 16:32, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

 * This is roughly the same idea as this diagram from the article, except this one uses a compass to draw a circle instead of turning the whole rectangle:
 * Golden_Rectangle_Construction.svg
 * –jacobolus (t) 17:28, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Link to Wikiquote
Please, let you add a link to Golden ratio at the bottom of the WP article 2.196.177.65 (talk) 11:44, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

 * This appears to be a backdoor method of reinstating extremely dubious claims about the widespread use of the Golden ratio in classical art and architecture, unsupported by modern scholarship and correctly eradicated from this article. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The page Golden ratio is very strange. That page should probably be deleted, unless someone plans to fill it with proper quotations. I was expecting it to have stuff like Kepler "Geometry has two great treasures [...]" etc., but instead it seems to be some incoherent book excerpts. It's not clear what the point is, but it seems like an abuse of Wikiquote. –jacobolus (t) 19:20, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

"Eradicated" seems an odd idea. I know I'm out on a limb here, but I think it would generally be regarded as a Good Thing if what WP said were actually true. It is important to note this historical obsession with the idea that creating something beautiful instinctively produces the GR, which is false, as opposed to the idea that someone might deliberately use it because of some mumbo-jumbo belief set. I think that the mumbo-jumbo is significant enough to be mentioned in the lead: after all, *why* is it called the "Golden Ratio", "Divine Proportion", etc. But it is also important to get the facts straight: the article includes a quote from a book by a professor with the word "mathematics" in his title: "The Golden Ratio is a standard feature of many modern designs, from postcards and credit cards to posters and light-switch plates." Perfectly supported quotation, proper printed book, what could go wrong? (Well, why do we instantly know from the "light-switch plates" that he is an American? Because he has no concept that "light-switch plates" might be a different shape entirely in other countries, if he even has a clear concept that there are other countries.) So I only know about credit cards and postcards. Credit cards are a universal size (I believe!): 86 by 64 mm. Their aspect ratio is 1.34 approx.; the ratio of the diagonal to the length is about 1.56; the GR is nowhere to be seen. Postcards vary somewhat: I selected the longest group from a bundle at hand, and got a typical 153x103 mm; AR = 1.48. So this book is not telling the truth, and we should not uncritically pass on lies. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:07, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Golden ratio


text:
Flag of Greenland

The flag of Greenland (Kalaallit erfalasuat, Grønlands flag) was designed by Greenland native Thue Christiansen. It features two equal horizontal bands of white (top) and red (bottom) with a counter-changed red-and-white disk slightly to the hoist side of centre. The entire flag measures 18 by 12 parts; each stripe measures 6 parts; the disk is 8 parts in diameter, horizontally offset by 7 parts from the hoist to the centre of the circle, and vertically centered.

Its local name in the Greenlandic language is Erfalasorput, which means "our flag". The term Aappalaartoq (meaning "the red") is also used for both the Greenlandic flag and the flag of Denmark (Dannebrog). Today, Greenlanders display both the Erfalasorput and the Dannebrog —often side by side. The flag of Greenland is the only national flag of a Nordic country or territory without a Nordic cross, but is similar to the cultural Sámi flag, which also features a circular design and counterchanging of field and charge.

History
Greenland first entertained the idea of a flag of its own in 1973 when five Greenlanders proposed a green, white and blue flag. The following year, a newspaper solicited eleven design proposals (all but one of which was a Nordic cross) and polled the people to determine the most popular. The flag of Denmark was preferred to the others. Little came of this effort.

In 1978, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland, making it an equal member of the Danish Realm. The home rule government held an official call for flag proposals, receiving 555 (of which 293 were submitted by Greenlanders).

The deciding committee came to no consensus, so more proposals were solicited. Finally, the present red-and-white design by Thue Christiansen narrowly won over a green-and-white Nordic cross by a vote of fourteen to eleven. Christiansen's red-and-white flag was officially adopted on 21 June 1985.

To honour the tenth anniversary of the flag, the Greenland Post Office issued commemorative postage stamps and a leaflet by the flag's creator. He described the white stripe as representing the glaciers and ice cap, which cover more than 80% of the island; the red stripe, the ocean; the red semicircle, the sun, with its bottom part sunk in the ocean; and the white semicircle, the icebergs and pack ice. The design is also reminiscent of the setting Sun half-submerged below the horizon and reflected on the sea. In 1985, it was reported that Greenland's flag had exactly the same motif as the flag of the Danish rowing club HEI Rosport, which was founded before Greenland's flag was chosen. It is not clear whether this is a case of plagiarism or just a coincidence, but the rowing club gave Greenland permission to use their flag.

The colours of the flag are the same as those of the flag of Denmark, symbolizing Greenland's place in the Danish realm.

title: Flag of Greenland


text:
Gustav Radbruch

Gustav Radbruch (21 November 1878 – 23 November 1949) was a German legal scholar and politician. He served as Minister of Justice of Germany during the early Weimar period. Radbruch is also regarded as one of the most influential legal philosophers of the 20th century.

Life
Born in Lübeck, Radbruch studied law in Munich, Leipzig and Berlin. He passed his first bar exam ("Staatsexamen") in Berlin in 1901, and the following year he received his doctorate with a dissertation on "The Theory of Adequate Causation". This was followed in 1903 by his qualification to teach criminal law in Heidelberg. In 1904, he was appointed Professor of criminal and trial law and legal philosophy in Heidelberg. In 1914 he accepted a call to a professorship in Königsberg, and later that year assumed a professorship at Kiel.

Radbruch was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and held a seat in the Reichstag from 1920 to 1924. In 1921–22 and throughout 1923, he was minister of justice in the cabinets of Joseph Wirth and Gustav Stresemann. During his time in office, a number of important laws were implemented, such as those giving women access to the justice system, and, after the assassination of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, the Law for the Protection of the Republic, which increased the punishments for politically motivated acts of violence and banned organizations that opposed the "constitutional republican form of government" along with their printed matter and meetings.

In 1926, Radbruch accepted a renewed call to lecture at Heidelberg where he delivered his inaugural lecture entitled "Der Mensch im Recht (Law's Image of the Human)" as the newly appointed Professor of Criminal Law on 13 November 1926. After the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, Radbruch, as a former Social Democratic politician, was dismissed from his university post under the terms of the so-called "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" ("Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums"). (The universities, as public bodies, were subject to civil service laws and regulations.) Despite the employment ban in Nazi Germany, during 1935/36 he was able to spend a year in England, at University College, Oxford. An important practical outcome of this was his book, Der Geist des englischen Rechts (The Spirit of English Law), although this could be published only in 1945. During the Nazi period, he devoted himself primarily to cultural-historical work.

Immediately after the end of the Second World War in 1945, he resumed his teaching activities, but died at Heidelberg in 1949 without being able to complete his planned updated edition of his textbook on legal philosophy.

In September 1945, Radbruch published a short paper "Fünf Minuten Rechtsphilosophie (Five Minutes of Legal Philosophy)", which was influential in shaping the jurisprudence of values (Wertungsjurisprudenz), prevalent in the aftermath of World War II as a reaction against legal positivism.

Work
Radbruch's legal philosophy derived from neo-Kantianism, which assumes that a categorical cleavage exists between "is" (sein) and "ought" (sollen). According to this view, "should" can never be derived from "Being." Indicative of the Heidelberg school of neokantianism to which Radbruch subscribed was that it interpolated the value-related cultural studies between the explanatory sciences (being) and philosophical teachings of values (should).

In relation to the law, this triadism shows itself in the subfields of legal sociology, legal philosophy and legal dogma. Legal dogma assumes a place in between. It posits itself in opposition to positive law, as the latter depicts itself in social reality and methodologically in the objective "should-have" sense of law, which reveals itself through value-related interpretation.

The core of Radbruch's legal philosophy consists of his tenets the concept of law and the idea of law. The idea of law is defined through a triad of justice, utility and certainty. Radbruch thereby had the idea of utility or usefulness spring forth from an analysis of the idea of justice. Upon this notion was based the Radbruch formula, which is still vigorously debated today. The concept of law, for Radbruch, is "nothing other than the given fact, which has the sense to serve the idea of law."

Hotly disputed is the question whether Radbruch was a legal positivist before 1933 and executed an about-face in his thinking due to the advent of Nazism, or whether he continued to develop, under the impression of Nazi crimes, the relativistic values-teaching he had already been advocating before 1933.

The problem of the controversy between the spirit and the letter of the law, in Germany, has been brought back to public attention due to the trials of former East German soldiers who guarded the Berlin Wall—the so-called necessity of following orders. Radbruch's theories are posited against the positivist "pure legal tenets" represented by Hans Kelsen and, to some extent, also from Georg Jellinek.

In sum, Radbruch's formula argues that where statutory law is incompatible with the requirements of justice "to an intolerable degree", or where statutory law was obviously designed in a way that deliberately negates "the equality that is the core of all justice", statutory law must be disregarded by a judge in favour of the justice principle. Since its first publication in 1946 the principle has been accepted by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court in a variety of cases. Many people partially blame the older German legal tradition of legal positivism for the ease with which Hitler obtained power in an outwardly "legal" manner, rather than by means of a coup. Arguably, the shift to a concept of natural law ought to act as a safeguard against dictatorship, an untrammeled State power and the abrogation of civil rights.

title: Gustav Radbruch


text:
Gate

A gate or gateway is a point of entry to or from a space enclosed by walls. The word derived from old Norse "gat" meaning road or path; But other terms include yett and port. The concept originally referred to the gap or hole in the wall or fence, rather than a barrier which closed it. Gates may prevent or control the entry or exit of individuals, or they may be merely decorative. The moving part or parts of a gateway may be considered "doors", as they are fixed at one side whilst opening and closing like one.

A gate may have a latch that can be raised and lowered to both open a gate or prevent it from swinging. Gate operation can be either automated gate operator or manual. Locks are also used on gates to increase security.

Larger gates can be used for a whole building, such as a castle or fortified town. Actual doors can also be considered gates when they are used to block entry as prevalent within a gatehouse. Today, many gate doors are equipped with self-closing devices that can improve safety, security, and convenience.

It is important to choose a controlled gate closer to ensure a consistent closing speed, as well as safety and security. A self-closing gate can help prevent accidents by children or pets, particularly around swimming pools, spas, beaches and hot tubs. A self-closing gate can also improve the security of the property by ensuring that the gate is closed and latched properly. There are various types of gate closers available, including exposed spring devices, gate closers, spring hinges, and self-closing hinges. The appropriate type of closer will depend on the weight and size of the gate, as well as other factors like speed control, weather resistance, and ADA compliance.

Purpose-specific types of gate

 * Baby gate: a safety gate to protect babies and toddlers
 * City gate of a walled city
 * Hampshire gate (a.k.a. New Zealand gate, wire gate, etc.)
 * Kissing gate on a footpath
 * Lychgate with a roof
 * Mon Japanese: gate. The religious torii compares to the Chinese pailou (paifang), Indian torana, Indonesian Paduraksa and Korean hongsalmun. Mon are widespread, in Japanese gardens.
 * Portcullis of a castle
 * Race gate used for checkpoints on race tracks.
 * Slip gate on footpaths
 * Turnstile
 * Watergate of a castle by navigable water
 * Slalom skiing gates
 * Wicket gate

title: Gate


text:
Greek fire

Greek fire was an incendiary chemical weapon manufactured in and used by the Eastern Roman Empire from the seventh through the fourteenth centuries. The recipe for Greek fire was a closely-guarded state secret, but historians speculate it may have been made by combining pine resin, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, sulfur, or niter. Roman sailors would toss grenades loaded with Greek fire onto enemy ships or spray it from tubes. Its ability to burn on water made it an effective and destructive naval incendiary weapon, and rival powers tried unsuccessfully to copy the material.

Name
Usage of the term "Greek fire" has been general in English and most other languages since the Crusades, but original Byzantine sources called the substance a variety of names, such as "sea fire" (Medieval Greek: πῦρ θαλάσσιον pŷr thalássion), "Roman fire" (πῦρ ῥωμαϊκόν pŷr rhōmaïkón), "war fire" (πολεμικὸν πῦρ polemikòn pŷr), "liquid fire" (ὑγρὸν πῦρ hygròn pŷr), "sticky fire" (πῦρ κολλητικόν pŷr kollētikón), or "manufactured fire" (πῦρ σκευαστόν pŷr skeuastón).

History
Incendiary and flaming weapons were used in warfare for centuries before Greek fire was invented. They included a number of sulfur-, petroleum-, and bitumen-based mixtures. Incendiary arrows and pots or small pouches containing combustible substances surrounded by caltrops or spikes, or launched by catapults, were used as early as the 9th century BC by the Assyrians and were extensively used in the Greco-Roman world as well. Furthermore, Thucydides mentions that in the siege of Delium in 424 BC a long tube on wheels was used which blew flames forward using a large bellows. The Graeco-Roman treatise Kestoi, compiled in the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD and traditionally (but not conclusively) ascribed to Julius Africanus, records a mixture that ignited from adequate heat and intense sunlight, used in grenades or night attacks:"Automatic fire also by the following formula. This is the recipe: take equal amounts of sulphur, rock salt, ashes, thunder stone, and pyrite and pound fine in a black mortar at midday sun. Also in equal amounts of each ingredient mix together black mulberry resin and Zakynthian asphalt, the latter in a liquid form and free-flowing, resulting in a product that is sooty colored. Then add to the asphalt the tiniest amount of quicklime. But because the sun is at its zenith, one must pound it carefully and protect the face, for it will ignite suddenly. When it catches fire, one should seal it in some sort of copper receptacle; in this way you will have it available in a box, without exposing it to the sun. If you should wish to ignite enemy armaments, you will smear it on in the evening, either on the armaments or some other object, but in secret; when the sun comes up, everything will be burnt up." In naval warfare, the Byzantine emperor Anastasius I ((r. 491 – 518)) is recorded by chronicler John Malalas to have been advised by a philosopher from Athens called Proclus to use sulfur to burn the ships of the rebel general Vitalian.

Greek fire proper, however, was developed in c. 672 and is ascribed by the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor to Kallinikos (Latinized Callinicus), an architect from Heliopolis in the former province of Phoenice, by then overrun by the Muslim conquests:

"At that time Kallinikos, an artificer from Heliopolis, fled to the Romans. He had devised a sea fire which ignited the Arab ships and burned them with all hands. Thus it was that the Romans returned with victory and discovered the sea fire."

The accuracy and exact chronology of this account is open to question: elsewhere, Theophanes reports the use of fire-carrying ships equipped with nozzles (siphōn) by the Byzantines a couple of years before the supposed arrival of Kallinikos at Constantinople. If this is not due to chronological confusion of the events of the siege, it may suggest that Kallinikos merely introduced an improved version of an established weapon. The historian James Partington further thinks it likely that Greek fire was not in fact the creation of any single person but "invented by chemists in Constantinople who had inherited the discoveries of the Alexandrian chemical school." Indeed, the 11th-century chronicler George Kedrenos records that Kallinikos came from Heliopolis in Egypt, but most scholars reject this as an error. Kedrenos also records the story, considered rather implausible by modern scholars, that Kallinikos' descendants, a family called Lampros, "brilliant," kept the secret of the fire's manufacture and continued doing so to Kedrenos' time.

Kallinikos' development of Greek fire came at a critical moment in the Byzantine Empire's history: weakened by its long wars with Sassanid Persia, the Byzantines had been unable to effectively resist the onslaught of the Muslim conquests. Within a generation, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had fallen to the Arabs, who in c. 672 set out to conquer the imperial capital of Constantinople. Greek fire was used to great effect against the Muslim fleets, helping to repel the Muslims at the first and second Arab sieges of the city. Records of its use in later naval battles against the Saracens are more sporadic, but it did secure a number of victories, especially in the phase of Byzantine expansion in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. Utilisation of the substance was prominent in Byzantine civil wars, chiefly the revolt of the thematic fleets in 727 and the large-scale rebellion led by Thomas the Slav in 821–823. In both cases, the rebel fleets were defeated by the Constantinople-based central Imperial Fleet through the use of Greek fire. The Byzantines also used the weapon to devastating effect against the various Rus' raids on the Bosporus, especially those of 941 and 1043, as well as during the Bulgarian war of 970–971, when the fire-carrying Byzantine ships blockaded the Danube.

The importance placed on Greek fire during the Empire's struggle against the Arabs would lead to its discovery being ascribed to divine intervention. The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos ((r. 945 – 959)), in his book De Administrando Imperio, admonishes his son and heir, Romanos II ((r. 959 – 963)), to never reveal the secrets of its composition, as it was "shown and revealed by an angel to the great and holy first Christian emperor Constantine" and that the angel bound him "not to prepare this fire but for Christians, and only in the imperial city." As a warning, he adds that one official, who was bribed into handing some of it over to the Empire's enemies, was struck down by a "flame from heaven" as he was about to enter a church. As the latter incident demonstrates, the Byzantines could not avoid capture of their precious secret weapon: the Arabs captured at least one fireship intact in 827, and the Bulgars captured several siphōns and much of the substance itself in 812/814. This, however, was apparently not enough to allow their enemies to copy it (see below). The Arabs, for instance, employed a variety of incendiary substances similar to the Byzantine weapon, but they were never able to copy the Byzantine method of deployment by siphōn, and used catapults and grenades instead.

Greek fire continued to be mentioned during the 12th century, and Anna Komnene gives a vivid description of its use in a naval battle against the Pisans in 1099. However, although the use of hastily improvised fireships is mentioned during the 1203 siege of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, no report confirms the use of the actual Greek fire. This might be because of the general disarmament of the Empire in the 20 years leading up to the sacking, or because the Byzantines had lost access to the areas where the primary ingredients were to be found, or even perhaps because the secret had been lost over time.

Records of a 13th-century event in which "Greek fire" was used by the Saracens against the Crusaders can be read through the Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville during the Seventh Crusade. One description of the memoir says "the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of heaven. It looked like a dragon flying through the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it were day, by reason of the great mass of fire, and the brilliance of the light that it shed."

In the 19th century, it is reported that an Armenian by the name of Kavafian approached the government of the Ottoman Empire with a new type of Greek fire he claimed to have developed. Kavafian refused to reveal its composition when asked by the government, insisting that he be placed in command of its use during naval engagements. Not long after this, he was poisoned by imperial authorities, without their ever having found out his secret.

General characteristics
As Constantine Porphyrogennetos' warnings show, the ingredients and the processes of manufacture and deployment of Greek fire were carefully guarded military secrets. So strict was the secrecy that the composition of Greek fire was lost forever and remains a source of speculation. Consequently, the "mystery" of the formula has long dominated the research into Greek fire. Despite this almost exclusive focus, however, Greek fire is best understood as a complete weapon system of many components, all of which were needed to operate together to render it effective. This comprised not only the formula of its composition, but also the specialized dromon ships that carried it into battle, the device used to prepare the substance by heating and pressurizing it, the siphōn projecting it, and the special training of the siphōnarioi who used it. Knowledge of the whole system was highly compartmentalised, with operators and technicians aware of the secrets of only one component, ensuring that no enemy could gain knowledge of it in its entirety. This accounts for the fact that when the Bulgarians took Mesembria and Debeltos in 814, they captured 36 siphōns and even quantities of the substance itself, but were unable to make any use of them.

The information available on Greek fire is exclusively indirect, based on references in the Byzantine military manuals and a number of secondary historical sources such as Anna Komnene and Western European chroniclers, which are often inaccurate. In her Alexiad, Anna Komnene provides a description of an incendiary weapon, which was used by the Byzantine garrison of Dyrrhachium in 1108 against the Normans. It is often regarded as an at least partial "recipe" for Greek fire: "This fire is made by the following arts: From the pine and certain such evergreen trees, inflammable resin is collected. This is rubbed with sulfur and put into tubes of reed, and is blown by men using it with violent and continuous breath. Then in this manner it meets the fire on the tip and catches light and falls like a fiery whirlwind on the faces of the enemies." At the same time, the reports by Western chroniclers of the famed ignis graecus are largely unreliable, since they apply the name to any and all sorts of incendiary substances.

In attempting to reconstruct the Greek fire system, the concrete evidence, as it emerges from the contemporary literary references, provides the following characteristics:
 * It burned on water; according to some interpretations it was ignited by water. Numerous writers testify that it could be extinguished only by a few substances, such as sand, strong vinegar, or old urine, some presumably by a sort of chemical reaction.
 * It was a liquid substance – not some sort of projectile – as verified both by descriptions and the very name "liquid fire".
 * At sea it was usually ejected from a siphōn, although earthenware pots or grenades filled with it – or similar substances – were also used.
 * The discharge of Greek fire was accompanied by "thunder" and "much smoke".

Theories on composition
The first and, for a long time, most popular theory regarding the composition of Greek fire held that its chief ingredient was saltpeter, making it an early form of gunpowder. This argument was based on the "thunder and smoke" description, as well as on the distance the flame could be projected from the siphōn, which suggested an explosive discharge. From the times of Isaac Vossius, several scholars adhered to this position, most notably the so-called "French school" during the 19th century, which included chemist Marcellin Berthelot.

This view has been rejected since saltpeter does not appear to have been used in warfare in Europe or the Middle East before the 13th century, and is absent from the accounts of the Muslim writers – the foremost chemists of the early medieval world – before the same period. In addition, the behavior of the proposed mixture would have been radically different from the siphōn-projected substance described by Byzantine sources.

A second view, based on the fact that Greek fire was inextinguishable by water (some sources suggest that water intensified the flames) suggested that its destructive power was the result of the explosive reaction between water and quicklime. Although quicklime was certainly known and used by the Byzantines and the Arabs in warfare, the theory is refuted by literary and empirical evidence. A quicklime-based substance would have to come in contact with water to ignite, while Emperor Leo's Tactica indicates that Greek fire was often poured directly on the decks of enemy ships, although admittedly, decks were kept wet due to lack of sealants. Likewise, Leo describes the use of grenades, which further reinforces the view that contact with water was not necessary for the substance's ignition. Furthermore, Zenghelis (1932) pointed out that, based on experiments, the actual result of the water–quicklime reaction would be negligible in the open sea.

Another similar proposition suggested that Kallinikos had in fact discovered calcium phosphide, which can be made by boiling bones in urine within a sealed vessel. On contact with water it releases phosphine, which ignites spontaneously. However, extensive experiments with calcium phosphide also failed to reproduce the described intensity of Greek fire.

Consequently, although the presence of either quicklime or saltpeter in the mixture cannot be entirely excluded, they were not the primary ingredient. Most modern scholars agree that Greek fire was based on either crude or refined petroleum, comparable to modern napalm. The Byzantines had easy access to crude oil from the naturally occurring wells around the Black Sea (e.g., the wells around Tmutorakan noted by Constantine Porphyrogennetos) or in various locations throughout the Middle East. An alternate name for Greek fire was "Median fire" (μηδικὸν πῦρ), and the 6th-century historian Procopius records that crude oil, called "naphtha" (in Greek: νάφθα naphtha, from Old Persian 𐎴𐎳𐎫 naft) by the Persians, was known to the Greeks as "Median oil" (μηδικὸν ἔλαιον). This seems to corroborate the availability of naphtha as a basic ingredient of Greek fire.

Naphtha was also used by the Abbasids in the 9th century, with special troops, the naffāṭūn, who wore thick protective suits and used small copper vessels containing burning oil, which they threw onto the enemy troops. There is also a surviving 9th century Latin text, preserved at Wolfenbüttel in Germany, which mentions the ingredients of what appears to be Greek fire and the operation of the siphōns used to project it. Although the text contains some inaccuracies, it clearly identifies the main component as naphtha. Resins were probably added as a thickener (the Praecepta Militaria refer to the substance as πῦρ κολλητικόν, "sticky fire"), and to increase the duration and intensity of the flame. A modern theoretical concoction included the use of pine tar and animal fat, along with other ingredients.

A 12th century treatise prepared by Mardi bin Ali al-Tarsusi for Saladin records an Arab version of Greek fire, called naft, which also had a petroleum base, with sulfur and various resins added. Any direct relation with the Byzantine formula is unlikely. An Italian recipe from the 16th century has been recorded for recreational use; it includes charcoal from a willow tree, saltpeter (sale ardente), alcohol, sulfur, incense, tar (pegola), wool and camphor; the concoction was guaranteed to "burn under water" and to be "beautiful".

Methods of deployment
The chief method of deployment of Greek fire, which sets it apart from similar substances, was its projection through a tube (siphōn), for use aboard ships or in sieges. Portable projectors (cheirosiphōnes, χειροσίφωνες) were also invented, reputedly by Emperor Leo VI. The Byzantine military manuals also mention that jars (chytrai or tzykalia) filled with Greek fire and caltrops wrapped with tow and soaked in the substance were thrown by catapults, while pivoting cranes (gerania) were employed to pour it upon enemy ships. The cheirosiphōnes especially were prescribed for use at land and in sieges, both against siege machines and against defenders on the walls, by several 10th-century military authors, and their use is depicted in the Poliorcetica of Hero of Byzantium. The Byzantine dromons usually had a siphōn installed on their prow under the forecastle, but additional devices could also on occasion be placed elsewhere on the ship. Thus in 941, when the Byzantines were facing the vastly more numerous Rus' fleet, siphōns were placed also amidships and even astern.

Projectors
The use of tubular projectors (σίφων, siphōn) is amply attested in the contemporary sources. Anna Komnene gives this account of beast-shaped Greek fire projectors being mounted to the bow of warships: "As he [the Emperor Alexios I] knew that the Pisans were skilled in sea warfare and dreaded a battle with them, on the prow of each ship he had a head fixed of a lion or other land-animal, made in brass or iron with the mouth open and then gilded over, so that their mere aspect was terrifying. And the fire which was to be directed against the enemy through tubes he made to pass through the mouths of the beasts, so that it seemed as if the lions and the other similar monsters were vomiting the fire."

Some sources provide more information on the composition and function of the whole mechanism. The Wolfenbüttel manuscript in particular provides the following description: "...having built a furnace right at the front of the ship, they set on it a copper vessel full of these things, having put fire underneath. And one of them, having made a bronze tube similar to that which the rustics call a squitiatoria, 'squirt,' with which boys play, they spray [it] at the enemy."

Another, possibly first-hand, account of the use of Greek fire comes from the 11th-century Yngvars saga víðförla, in which the Viking Ingvar the Far-Travelled faces ships equipped with Greek fire weapons: "[They] began blowing with smiths’ bellows at a furnace in which there was fire and there came from it a great din. There stood there also a brass [or bronze] tube and from it flew much fire against one ship, and it burned up in a short time so that all of it became white ashes..." The account, albeit embellished, corresponds with many of the characteristics of Greek fire known from other sources, such as a loud roar that accompanied its discharge. These two texts are also the only two sources that explicitly mention that the substance was heated over a furnace before being discharged; although the validity of this information is open to question, modern reconstructions have relied upon them.

Based on these descriptions and the Byzantine sources, John Haldon and Maurice Byrne designed a hypothetical apparatus as consisting of three main components: a bronze pump, which was used to pressurize the oil; a brazier, used to heat the oil (πρόπυρον, propyron, "pre-heater"); and the nozzle, which was covered in bronze and mounted on a swivel (στρεπτόν, strepton). The brazier, burning a match of linen or flax that produced intense heat and the characteristic thick smoke, was used to heat oil and the other ingredients in an airtight tank above it, a process that also helped to dissolve the resins into a fluid mixture. The substance was pressurized by the heat and the usage of a force pump. After it had reached the proper pressure, a valve connecting the tank with the swivel was opened and the mixture was discharged from its end, being ignited at its mouth by some source of flame. The intense heat of the flame made necessary the presence of heat shields made of iron (βουκόλια, boukolia), which are attested in the fleet inventories.

The process of operating Haldon and Byrne's design was fraught with danger, as the mounting pressure could easily make the heated oil tank explode, a flaw which was not recorded as a problem with the historical fire weapon. In the experiments conducted by Haldon in 2002 for the episode "Fireship" of the television series Machines Times Forgot, even modern welding techniques failed to secure adequate insulation of the bronze tank under pressure. This led to the relocation of the pressure pump between the tank and the nozzle. The full-scale device built on this basis established the effectiveness of the mechanism's design, even with the simple materials and techniques available to the Byzantines. The experiment used crude oil mixed with wood resins, and achieved a flame temperature of over 1000 C and an effective range of up to 15 m.

Hand-held projectors
The portable cheirosiphōn ("hand-siphōn"), the earliest analogue to a modern flamethrower, is extensively attested in the military documents of the 10th century, and recommended for use in both sea and land. They first appear in the Tactica of emperor Leo VI the Wise, who claims to have invented them. Subsequent authors continued to refer to the cheirosiphōnes, especially for use against siege towers, although Nikephoros II Phokas also advises their use in field armies, with the aim of disrupting the enemy formation. Although both Leo VI and Nikephoros Phokas claim that the substance used in the cheirosiphōnes was the same as in the static devices used on ships, Haldon and Byrne consider that the former were manifestly different from their larger cousins, and theorize that the device was fundamentally different, "a simple syringe [that] squirted both liquid fire (presumably unignited) and noxious juices to repel enemy troops." The illustrations of Hero's Poliorcetica show the cheirosiphōn also throwing the ignited substance.

Grenades
In its earliest form, Greek fire was hurled onto enemy forces by firing a burning cloth-wrapped ball, perhaps containing a flask, using a form of light catapult, most probably a seaborne variant of the Roman light catapult or onager. These were capable of hurling light loads, around 6 to 9 kg, a distance of 350 - 450 m.

Effectiveness and countermeasures
Although the destructiveness of Greek fire is indisputable, it did not make the Byzantine navy invincible. It was not, in the words of naval historian John Pryor, a "ship-killer" comparable to the naval ram, which, by then, had fallen out of use. While Greek fire remained a potent weapon, its limitations were significant when compared to more traditional forms of artillery: in its siphōn-deployed version, it had a limited range, and it could be used safely only in a calm sea and with favourable wind conditions.

The Muslim navies eventually adapted themselves to it by staying out of its effective range and devising methods of protection such as felt or hides soaked in vinegar.

Nevertheless, it was still a decisive weapon in many battles. John Julius Norwich wrote: "It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Greek fire in Byzantine history."

In literature

 * In Paloma Recasens's historical 2021 novel Sevilla antes de la Giralda, the Castilian army fabricates Greek Fire to use it in their crusade against the Almohads.
 * In Steve Berry's 2007 novel The Venetian Betrayal Greek Fire is described and used as a weapon.
 * In William Golding's 1958 play The Brass Butterfly, adapted from his novella Envoy Extraordinary, the Greek inventor Phanocles demonstrates explosives to the Roman Emperor. The Emperor decides that his empire is not ready for this or for Phanocles's other inventions and sends him on "a slow boat to China".
 * In Victor Canning's stage play Honour Bright  (1960), the crusader Godfrey of Ware returns with a casket of Greek Fire given to him by an old man in Athens.
 * In Rick Riordan's Greek storyline, Greek Fire is described as being a volatile green liquid. When it explodes, all of the substance is spread out over an area and burns continuously. It is very strong and dangerous.
 * In C. J. Sansom's historical mystery novel Dark Fire, Thomas Cromwell sends the lawyer Matthew Shardlake to recover the secret of Greek fire, following its discovery in the library of a dissolved London monastery.
 * In Michael Crichton's sci-fi novel Timeline, Professor Edward Johnston is stuck in the past in 14th century Europe, and claims to have knowledge of Greek fire.
 * In Mika Waltari's novel The Dark Angel, some old men who are the last ones who know the secret of Greek fire are mentioned as present in the last Christian services held in Hagia Sophia before the Fall of Constantinople. The narrator is told that in the event of the city's fall, they will be killed so as to keep the secret from the Turks.
 * In George R. R. Martin's fantasy series of novels A Song of Ice and Fire, and its television adaptation Game of Thrones, wildfire is similar to Greek fire. It was used in naval battles as it could remain lit on water, and its recipe was closely guarded.
 * In Leland Purvis's graphic novel Vox: collected works, 1999–2003, there is a passage detailing Callinicus and Greek Fire.

In popular culture

 * Greek fire was used by Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, in the 2011 film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
 * An application of Greek fire is shown in the 2011 Ubisoft video game Assassin's Creed: Revelations when the main character, Ezio Auditore, escapes from the port of Istanbul using a hand projector located on an Ottoman ship.

title: Greek fire


text:
Garbage in, garbage out

In computer science, garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) is the concept that flawed, biased or poor quality ("garbage") information or input produces a result or output of similar ("garbage") quality. The adage points to the need to improve data quality in, for example, programming. Rubbish in, rubbish out (RIRO) is an alternate wording.

The principle applies to all logical argumentation: soundness implies validity, but validity does not imply soundness.

History
The expression was popular in the early days of computing. The first known use is in a 1957 syndicated newspaper article about US Army mathematicians and their work with early computers, in which an Army Specialist named William D. Mellin explained that computers cannot think for themselves, and that "sloppily programmed" inputs inevitably lead to incorrect outputs. The underlying principle was noted by the inventor of the first programmable computing device design:

"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

More recently, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch comes to a similar conclusion:

"A loading computer is an effective and useful tool for the safe running of a ship. However, its output can only be as accurate as the information entered into it."

The term may have been derived from last-in, first-out (LIFO) or first-in, first-out (FIFO).

Uses
This phrase can be used as an explanation for the poor quality of a digitized audio or video file. Although digitizing can be the first step in cleaning up a signal, it does not, by itself, improve the quality. Defects in the original analog signal will be faithfully recorded, but might be identified and removed by a subsequent step by digital signal processing.

GIGO is also used to describe failures in human decision-making due to faulty, incomplete, or imprecise data.

In audiology, GIGO describes the process that occurs at the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN) when auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder is present. This occurs when the neural firing from the cochlea has become unsynchronized, resulting in a static-filled sound being input into the DCN and then passed up the chain to the auditory cortex. The term was applied by Dan Schwartz at the 2012 Worldwide ANSD Conference, St. Petersburg, Florida, on 16 March 2012; and adopted as industry jargon to describe the electrical signal received by the dorsal cochlear nucleus and passed up the auditory chain to the superior olivary complex on the way to the auditory cortex destination.

GIGO was the name of a Usenet gateway program to FidoNet, MAUSnet, e.a.

title: Garbage in, garbage out


text:
Talk:Gdynia

Talk:Gdynia/Archive1 A few typos: Someone's working on this page right now. Rather than try and make changes at the same time, I'll leave these notes regarding typos: 1. "Many Gdynians also studied on other Tricity universities." should probably say "at other" 2. "The city was constructed later that the seaport." should say "than the" 3. "despite that the previous German name" "despite the fact that the"

feel free to my notes once the typos are fixed. :) --Krupo 05:08, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Bolding
Can anyone explain to me why the obscure name of Gidigen needs to be bold ? But not Gotternhaffen or the other name. I could understand the bolding in Gdansk but not for Gdynia since it is a Polish City and almost has no german connection except for a Village a long long time ago.24.2.152.139

Gdynia history
Since Gdynia used to be a village, wouldn't be better to refer to history of Pomerania in Gdynia History and mention only the facts that had meaning for Gdynia there?

The fact, that the province used to have rich past, doesn't really matter, if Gdynia wasn't any center at all. Cautious 07:54, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Remove most of the following paragraph: "Gdynia, as part of Eastern Pomerania, was part of the loose confederation of Slavic tribes that would later be called Poland from ca. 990–1308. After the Northern Crusades it became a state of the Teutonic Order (1308–1454/66), but afterwards fell to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1466–1772). At the Partitions of Poland of 1772 it was annexed into the Kingdom of Prussia (1772–1919), and as part of Prussia became part of the German Empire (1870–1919). After World War One it was assigned as part of the Polish Corridor to Poland (1919–1945), and was re-annexed by Nazi Germany at the start of World War Two in 1939. Gdynia finally became a part of modern Poland in 1945. Its name during the centuries it was under German rule was Gdingen. "

Focus only on facts, that had meaning for Gdynia itself. Cautious 08:09, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

So, if I get you right, it's the following paragraph that you want to remove?
 * Gdynia, as part of Eastern Pomerania, was part of the loose confederation of Slavic tribes that would later be called Poland from ca. 990–1308. After the Northern Crusades it became a state of the Teutonic Order (1308–1454/66), but afterwards fell to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1466–1772). At the Partitions of Poland of 1772 it was annexed into the Kingdom of Prussia (1772–1919), and as part of Prussia became part of the German Empire (1870–1919). After World War One it was assigned as part of the Polish Corridor to Poland (1919–1945), and was re-annexed by Nazi Germany at the start of World War Two in 1939. Gdynia finally became a part of modern Poland in 1945. Its name during the centuries it was under German rule was Gdingen.

--Ruhrjung 08:11, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, with the reference to the history of the province. Of course, if i.e. Prussian King acted in Gdynia, we should mention it, but otherwise not. Cautious 08:16, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK, so what about the following?
 * Gdynia as a Pomeranian (Kashubian) fishers village is first mentioned in 1253, although Oksywie, now part of Gdynia, was mentioned even earlier in 1209. In the years 1382–1772 Gdynia belonged to the Cistercian abbey in Oliwa.

 * In 1870 Gdynia had some 1200 inhabitants. It was a popular tourist spot with several guesthouses, restaurants, cafes, a couple of brick houses and small harbour with pier for small trading ships. The first Kashubian mayor of Gdynia was Jan Radtke.

 * After the Treaty of Versailles (1919), Gdynia belonged to those parts of former Royal Prussia, that were transferred to the restaurated Poland and made the Pomeranian Voivodship. The neighboring Danzig (now: Gdansk), Poland's main seaport, was made the Free City of Danzig under the League of Nations.

--Ruhrjung 08:38, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Very good! However, Radtke was not a major, since Gdynia wasn't a city. What is the English/German/Polish titule for the chief of the village? Polish is wojt, the street is named: Wojta Radtkego.Cautious 09:30, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * No, Radtke was not a major, he was the Mayor of the village. (Wójt/Vogt: The term also denotes a mayor of a village).
 * --Jidu Boite (talk) 10:22, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Please do NOT promote the Nazi names
Ertz why do you feel the need to remove the fact that Gottenhafen was renamed during Nazi Occupation and why do you feel the need to bold the name of a 100% Polish City which almost has no German connection whatsoever ??

24.2.152.139 03:03, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There is no need to discuss the Nazi times names in the header, or in the intro article. this is less importnant fact, and it is already discussed in the history section, below in the article. We don't have to promote the Nazi names in Wikipedia, and such promotional activity should be considered very rude and offensive. PolishPoliticians 02:27, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * When/where was the spelling Gotenhaven (with a 'v') used? Drutt (talk) 00:48, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Clod
Can someone explain what "clod" is intended to mean in this context? Wikipedia, dictionary.com, Google and my old paper dictionary are all drawing blanks, except to refer to lumps of dirt or people of similar intelligence to lumps of dirt. I don't think that's quite what we're on about here, though I might be wrong... in any case, there's got to be a better way to put it than "a large clod room".

Anyway, I've gone through and edited for grammar and a more encyclopaedic style -- I hope I haven't stepped on anybody's toes. JK 13:10, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sights and tourist attractions
Don't you think that plot Sights and tourist attractions should be higher ? It's just 6th point ! I think that this information is much more important and of course much more interesting than education, Sports and Politics... Maybe we should place this plot as 2nd or 3rd point ??? What are yours opinion ?

?
In 1938 Gdynia was the largest and most modern seaport on the Baltic Sea, Does this mean it overtook the Free City of Danzig? Or is there a technicality here?--155.247.166.29 10:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Removed Nordeabank from companies headquartered in Gdynia
I forgot to add this in the edit history box thingy. Anyways, Nordeabanks headquarters is in Stockholm, Sweden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.102.71.102 (talk) 17:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

U-boat base
As far as I know, Gotenhafen was use as a major U-boat training centre during WWII. In particular the 22nd and 27th Unterseebootsflottillen were here based. Perhaps this could be mentioned in the History section.

http://uboat.net/flotillas/22flo.htm http://uboat.net/flotillas/27flo.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.246.132.26 (talk) 10:51, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

in Polish....
Ludzie ! Czy wy naprawdę nie macie lepszych fotografii pięknego miasta Gdyni ? Więc je zróbcie, bo mi za was wstyd ! (dimitris/Ateny) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dimkoa (talk • contribs) 20:49, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Construction of the city
This section of the article is under-developed, compared to the preceding section Construction of the seaport. I propose to add the following, and then delete the out-of-place reference to the Baltic Institute.

A new railway station and the Post Office were completed. The State railways extended their lines, built bridges and also constructed a group of houses for their employees. Within a few years houses were built along some 10 miles of the road leading northward from the Free City of Danzig to Gdynia and beyond. Public institutions and private employers helped their staffs to build houses.

In 1933 a plan of development providing for a population of 250,000 was worked out by a special commission appointed by a government committee, in collaboration with the municipal authorities. By 1939 the population had grown to over 120,000. (Source is (ed) Michael Murray, Poland's Progress 1919-1939, John Murray, 1944, London pp64-6) Chrisemms (talk) 22:13, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Unsourced and Unfounded Allegations
... are made in the text, please remove or put references up. Thank you. --197.229.77.104 (talk) 20:18, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Companies headquartered...
Under "Economy": Sony, Reuters and Nordea certainly aren't headquartered in Gdynia as claimed, it's probably a nuance of English, I've added "or regional offices". I've assumed the companies listed actually have at least regional offices there but I haven't checked. The Economy section may be pointless if it's just a list of main employers. JohnHarris (talk) 10:37, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Gdynia