Show HN: Most Wikipedia articles lead to the same loop
wikiloopr.com
wikiloopr.com
Think of the act of clicking the first link in the Wikipedia article as a function that takes in the page you're on and outputs another page.
If you call this function on itself over and over again (ie use the output of one step as in the input of the next step), you will eventually enter a loop. The proof of this is simple: there are only a finite number of Wikipedia articles, therefore you must eventually reach an article you've seen before. (This is the same reason systems with a finite number of states cannot be chaotic.)
Since it's necessarily true that all articles will eventually reach a loop when you iteratively click the first link, we have to ask: how unusual is it that they usually reach the SAME loop?
Without more information, I don't think this is true. It is true if the transition function between states depends on a finite number of previous ones (WLOG if s_n is a function of only s_{n-1}), but I think that it isn't if the transition depends on an infinite number.
(Though, in this case, clearly there is no history, so what you say is true.)
In the case of depending on up to an infinite history, I wouldn't call that system to have a finite number of states any longer.
E.g.
A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is an American _multinational corporation_ which provides Internet-related products and services [...]
A table is a form of _furniture_ with a flat and satisfactory horizontal upper surface [...]
And so on. If you always walk up the abstraction chain because you're picking the first link (the general category), you'll end up at the root of the categorization tree, which is likely something along the lines of Argument, Logic, Fact etc.
Note however that the current state of wikipedia has a different root loop for me, Logic leads to Philosophy.
(1) or one of a very limited number of loops, I also saw Science <-> Knowledge.
For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebra
"Algebra ... is a branch of mathematics." (mathematics being a link)
So if you continue to generalize you'll end up at the most general subject which appears to be philosophy.
[update] added an example
In the context of academic degrees, the term "philosophy" does not refer solely to the field of philosophy, but is used in a broader sense in accordance with its original Greek meaning, which is "love of wisdom". In most of Europe, all fields other than theology, law and medicine were traditionally known as philosophy. The doctorate of philosophy as it exists today originated as a doctorate in the liberal arts at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and was eventually adopted by United States universities, becoming common in large parts of the world in the 20th century.[1] In many countries, the doctorate of philosophy is still awarded only in the liberal arts, which is known as "philosophy" in continental Europe.
Ah, and the first three of the liberal arts that were the first thing a student learned, grammar, rhetoric and logic, were called the trivium, hence the modern word "trivial" for obvious things everyone should know.
In the above - grammar, rhetoric, logic - formed the "trivium" and - arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy - formed the "quadrivium".
Also "trivium" represented the place where three roads would intersect. People would meet here and exchange pleasantries and gossip. That is how you get the current meaning of the word "trivia".
As a nerdy kid, over a few years I read my way through a significant chunk of the early 1990's Groliers Encyclopedia set my Grandma bought me at Krogers. And it was never cover-to-cover reading, instead it was filled with hopping around, page-to-page, volume-to-volume. Start at oscilloscope, but what's a cathode ray? And then it's in television? How does broadcasting work? I'd sit on the floor with a half dozen open encyclopedias open around me, the same way we can do now with browser tabs.
Wikipedia has many flaws, but it's a fantastic tool and I'd have killed for it as a 12 year old with 5 volumes of an encyclopedia in my backpack!
I find this drill-down effect to be quite illuminating, if not productive. Strangely, it seems to provide both depth and breadth of topics in relatively equal measures.
Recently, I've been giving access to the game data to people (like university researchers, etc) to test different theories on path connections made by real people, etc.
The game has now been running for over 3 years, has about 1.19 million players, playing over 1.37 million games, with about 1.22 million won games (successful start/end article connection).
Got a really cool application for all the game data? I'd love to hear: alex@thewikigame.com
In trying to describe a domain in an encyclopedia, it does little good to use language specific to the domain. If your reader doesn't know what Biology is, it's little use trying to describe it in terms of Microbiology and Immunology. You have to use more general language.
There are are few words more general and meaningless in our language than "organization".
edit - grammar
(Incidentally, my test case for the screenshot did not lead to Philosophy!)
My brain exploded.
Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_planets:_75001%E2...
That is, however, a weird Wikipedia page. It seems like the first link is a target to another location on the page, which (I'd assume) would put it in an infinite loop.
As noted by XKCD, everything is based on something else: http://xkcd.com/435/
And I think after Maths on that should come Philosophy.
But please don't go editing articles to improve the loops or otherwise change them. Unless of course the change is beneficial to the article.
It's like going for a walk somewhere fascinating; enjoy the view, but leave nothing behind :)
Biology
Natural science
Science
Knowledge
Fact
Proof (truth)
Argument
Philosophy
Problem
Doubt
Belief
Proposition
Logic
Reason
Human
Mammal
Class (biology)
Biological classification
Organism
Biology
The first link on the Wikipedia page for Biology is "Biology(disambiguation)", but the first textual link is "Natural Science". I assume it loops on Biology because it keeps going back between Biology (the article) and Biology (disambiguation), but that doesn't explain why the first redirect is to Natural Science in the very beginning.Am I just missing something here?
Edit: This no longer happens. Now it properly loops on Philosophy and Proposition.
* Carly Rae Jepson
* Paul is dead
* Telephony
* Easter Island
* Drum and bass
* Sunglasses
* CAT 5
* Willy Wonka
* Black hole
* Vancouver
* Cloud Cuckoo Land
* Bacon
* Radish
* Brunette
* Dunning-Kruger Effect
* Lady Gaga
* Sailor Moon
If the chain hits Philosophy first, it converges on Philosophy/Argument. If it hits Fact first, it converges on Fact/Truth.
Star Trek
Star Trek
Cinema of the United States
Film
Cinema of the United States
Recording
Data
Level of measurement
Film
...etc until the last page title, "Reality"
Seems like two processes were running in parallel and outputting to the same stream. Anime
Animation
The page you specified doesn't existhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion
Is that an Easter Egg (illusion == doesn't exist)?
Greek City States ->
Polis
City
Human settlement
Statistics
Data
Level of measurement
Stanley Smith Stevens
United States
Federalism
Politics
Art
Human behavior
Behavior
Organism
Biology
Natural science
Science
Knowledge
Fact
Proof (truth)
Argument
Philosophy
Problem
Doubt
Belief
Proposition loops to PhilosophyFor example, the page on Anime:
"Whale" leads to the "pinniped"/"marine mammal" loop. How about that one?
- Always interested in the backstory of folks that sit around thinking this stuff up (and then testing it).
Today most articles ends in cycle between Philosophy and Modern Philosophy.. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_philosophy )
few days ago, it was cycling between Philosophy and Agency ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(philosophy) )
What changed and why?
Its a little bit like butterfly effect :)
Port Arthur http://wikiloopr.com/Port%20Arthur
Either that, I found a bug.
Edit: Looks like somebody is editing certain articles that don't have philosophy as the first link to have it. Psychology used to loop with itself through like 5 intermediates.
And lo and behold, I tried word "word" and it loops between "emotion" and "psychology". http://wikiloopr.com/word
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
it still brings you to a loop, but it's not an immediate back-and-forth between the last two.
"In philosophy and sociology..."
On the Agency (philosophy) page. This changed the output of the results, but in the end the loop still existed. However, I couldn't help but feel like someone is trying to hack the matrix.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reason&oldid=5...
Amusingly, my test got stuck in a loop between Science and Natural Science. :)
The Tyger
William Blake
Romanticism
Industrial Revolution
United Kingdom
Britain (placename)
Great Britain
shrug apparently, william blake is indisputable.m3mnoch.
1. Elephant (Mammal ... Human)
2. Big Bang (Fact ... Truth)
http://wikiloopr.com/home http://wikiloopr.com/chopsticks http://wikiloopr.com/monty%20python
I also found M62 Locomotive [2] at 26 to be interesting.
That's a good find you found. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loops
I'm
so
meta
even
this
acronym