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Etiquette: Would the following question be appropriate for MO?

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    I am reading "Iterated Loop Spaces" by Frank Morgan, and I am trying to understand the associahedra. I thought it would be fun to build a model of K_5 to understand how it fits together. The problem is that when I actually drew out the 14 different ways of associating 5 elements and identified face and edge relationships, it doesn't seem to be consistent with the standard picture of K_5. I am sure that it must have been a silly error on my part, but for the past few days I have spent at least an hour or two redoing it and getting the same mistake. I feel silly asking for someone on MO to look through my work for (what must be) trivial errors, but I am getting a little desperate. If I actually asked this question I would scan the work I have done. Would this be an appropriate question for MO?

    Also is this an appropriate question for meta? (And is there a meta-meta where this last question might be more appropriate?)
    • CommentAuthorHarry Gindi
    • CommentTimeFeb 17th 2010 edited
     
    I think that this question is fine. You might want to make up a codecogs diagram or get a picture of what you've done, since it's a lot easier to help you if you've got a picture handy. However, have you checked nLab? There are some articles linked under Stasheff Polytopes that see like they might help you (the stasheff polytopes are the higher associahedra, if I remember correctly).
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    Steven,

    (i) Yes, I certainly think that your meta-question an appropriate question for meta. In general, I think that if someone doubts whether the question they have in mind is suitable for MO, then asking about it here is a fine thing to do, and probably makes for a more pleasant experience than asking at MO and having it closed.

    (ii) Yes, I think your actual question is appropriate for MO. It's quite specialized, sure, but you have a precise question and you've put work into it finding an answer yourself.

    (iii) Now that I've got this far, I can't resist giving you a couple of links that might answer your question. First, there's Eugenia Cheng and Aaron Lauda's instructions for "Build your own 5-associahedron". This doesn't show which trees go on which vertices, but Figure 7-G (p.194) of this does most of the job.

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    Heh, Tom, I was going to link your book as an answer when he posted the question =\.
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    Just in case you wanted to hear it from a moderator too, yes, your question looks fine and yes, it's fine to ask about it on meta. I feel like in general "Here is this thing I was was trying to do, and I couldn't seem to get things to match up. Where have I gone wrong?" is fine, as long as it isn't overused. I would be a bit displeased if someone had one of these every week, but every once in a while it's a great use of the site. A bad question would be something like "What is the associahedron?" which didn't give context of any sort.

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    I think this is a fine question for meta. As far as asking the question on MO, it's okay, but I don't really like "find what I'm doing wrong" questions. If at all possible, reformulate your question to make it sound more appealing than verifying a calculation. It sounds like this particular question might be pretty hard to reframe. Do your best.

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    In the process of laboriously typing the question I found the error I had made... Oh well.

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