10
$\begingroup$

The question is basically in the title:

Should we have tags for some individual theorems from calculus? (Or perhaps groups of theorems?) If so, which ones deserve their own tag?

It is not unprecedented to have a tag for group of theorems - or - or even specific theorem - , , or . So I would think that making this post about theorems in general would make this question too broad and therefore I restricted the question to theorems from calculus.

There already exist some tags related to theorems about differentiation: and . The first one has about 40 questions and the latter about 300 questions at the moment. (However, Implicit function theorem is a result from multivariable calculus, so it is slightly different from other calculus-related tags mentioned in this post.)

The main motivation why I posted this question now is that recently several tags named after theorems from introductory analysis have been created. There are the tags and , both of them created last month. (They are both still displayed in the list of new tags, together with date of creation. See also here and here.) The tag for Intermediate value theorem has been created not so long ago and then removed. For this reason I thought that it would be good to get some input form the Math.SE community on this type of tags before new similar tags are created and before the already existing tag grow too large.

There exists previous discussion on meta about Mean value theorem: Tag proposal: mean-value-theorem. Although that question was about a specific tag, the answer also mentioned other theorems. Another calculus theorem which was discussed here on meta was Squeeze theorem: Tag proposal: squeeze-theorem.

I have also made a separate post about Rolle's theorem in tag management thread, but it is probably better to discuss this issue more generally rather than making a separate post about each tag of this nature.

$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ There's some linkage between tags and abstract duplicates in that our list of common Questions is organized by tags. IVT fits somewhere between precalculus and calculus perhaps, but isn't found there (yet). $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 14:45
  • $\begingroup$ It seems strange to me that extreme-value-theorem is a tag and you removed the mean-value-theorem on my last post ([math.stackexchange.com/questions/3618023/…) . I am not necessarily saying I disagree (with the tag not existing) , but why does the extreme value theorem tag still exists then? Is that a more important theorem? Or is it only because it's been around longer $\endgroup$
    – Peter_Pan
    Commented Apr 11, 2020 at 0:03
  • $\begingroup$ @Jess I will just point out that there is a separate discussion about (mean-value-theorem): Tag proposal: mean-value-theorem, The voting on that post suggest that the community here is against the tag (mean-value-theorem). You can also see from the SEDE queries I posted in chat that this tag was created and removed several times in the past. Of course, if you think that the tag should exist, feel free to raise the issue on meta to get feedback from more users. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 11, 2020 at 4:07

1 Answer 1

7
$\begingroup$

The problem with creating those tags is that they are too specific. If that is the problem with all four of the tags mentioned here then we can create a tag that represents all of the four tags. Two possible suggestions by me are "Value-theorems" or "Continuity-theorems".

I know these are pretty bad suggestions but that is not the point, someone can come up with better name easily.

$\endgroup$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .