tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Tag: symplectic)

Perutz comments on "Tag: symplectic" (9377)

Perutz — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 20:10:39 -0700

@WillieWong. I wonder if Prof Gunning (who used the tags "symplectic" and "matrices") meant them to be read together. And actually, a "symplectic-matrices" tag might be reasonable: it would be for questions about linear symplectic groups (as Lie groups, algebraic groups, finite groups of Lie type, etc.) or their Lie algebras. Such questions do not necessarily belong to symplectic geometry.

That said, we don't have tags for orthogonal or unitary matrices, and maybe the tags "lie-groups", "algebraic groups" and so on are adequate.

WillieWong comments on "Tag: symplectic" (9372)

WillieWong — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 17:45:30 -0700

@Perutz: thanks for the link. That is very educational. Would you also care to comment about the issue I raised up top? The [symplectic] tag, I'd imagine, has lower specificity, it'd be great if someone more knowledgeable (you, for example) can assign to them the more correct tags.

Perutz comments on "Tag: symplectic" (9366)

Perutz — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 14:14:48 -0700

@WillieWong.

Ryan is right. I explained the usage of "symplectic topology" in a bit more detail in this meta thread

http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/34/2/tag-mergerename-requests/

My impression is that those who use that tag usually do so correctly. Like most Arxiv tags, sg.symplectic-geometry covers a lot of ground, and greater specificity may be helpful.

sq comments on "Tag: symplectic" (9363)

sq — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 13:57:10 -0700

What is "symplectic algebra" ? and "symplectic algebraic geometry", and "symplectic probability", ...

Are these categorized as symplectic geometry ?

Is a "symplectic graph" the route to "symplectic combinatorics" (whatever that would be?)

Ryan Budney comments on "Tag: symplectic" (9362)

Ryan Budney — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 13:49:16 -0700

Certainly some people feel there is. I'd say it's much like the difference between differential geometry and differential topology. You're using much of the same tools, but there's sometimes a difference in emphasis as to what your objectives are.

WillieWong comments on "Tag: symplectic" (9361)

WillieWong — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 13:24:11 -0700

Is there (and if so, what is it?) a difference between symplectic geometry and topology? (I'm honestly ignorant here.)

Ilya Grigoriev comments on "Tag: symplectic" (9356)

Ilya Grigoriev — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 11:38:06 -0700

I think that it would be good to combine all of these into one tag, since I think that symplectic geometry and topology are the same subject (it's a matter of personal philosophy & tradition what to call it). In the end, it's probably the sg.symplectic-geometry tag that should be left, since it matches an arxiv topic.

jc comments on "Tag: symplectic" (9328)

jc — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:54:39 -0700

There's a sg.symplectic-geometry tag and a symplectic-topology tag, which are used for slightly different things. It looks like the third question is "symplectic-topology" and the first two might be "sg.symplectic-geometry", but I'll leave it to the experts to decide.

WillieWong comments on "Tag: symplectic" (9320)

WillieWong — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:10:46 -0700

There are currently three questions using the tag [symplectic]

Symplectic matrices

Invariant theory explanation of ...

When are two symplectic forms isotopic

Could they be re-tagged into other more widely used tags? Should the [symplectic] tag be removed or renamed? It feels to me a bit of an awkward tag: by all means it should contain, as subsets, all "symplectic X" tags, which seems over broad, while it is only now used for the "other symplectic Xs that don't get their own tags". Also I can't help but feel a bit strange to see just the adjective floating around with no noun to act on.