Talk:Prison Mathematics Project

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A fact from Prison Mathematics Project appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 March 2026 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Prison Mathematics Project brought a professor from Italy to an American prison to celebrate Pi Day?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2026/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Prison Mathematics Project.

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by TarnishedPath (talk) 09:05, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

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Article history

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... that the Prison Mathematics Project brought a professor from Italy to a prison near Seattle to celebrate Pi Day?

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20210617031039/https://doc.wa.gov/news/2017/03172017.htm "Havens recently shared his story during MCC's first-ever inmate-led "Pi Day" Celebration. [...] The event included a pi-digit memorization contest, a pi trivia contest, speeches by inmates, and presentations by mathematics professors from the Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy, Lafayette College, and University of Washington."

- ALT1: ... that the Prison Mathematics Project was co-founded by a convicted murderer and a teenager? Source: https://www.pointsoflight.org/awards/teen-volunteer-teams-up-with-prisoner-to-reduce-recidivism-using-math/ "Plano, Texas teenager Walker Blackwell says he grew up with a fondness for mathematics, so when he read a news article online about a convicted murderer named Christopher Havens who had solved an ancient math problem, he was inspired. [...] At the tender age of 15, Walker co-founded Prison Mathematics Project (PMP) with Christopher, a 42-year-old who is currently serving a 25-year sentence at the Monroe Correctional Complex in Monroe, Washington."
- ALT2: ... that the Prison Mathematics Project had a system to let inmates run computer code via email? Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pioneering-advanced-math-from-behind-bars/ "Most recently, the project has developed a system to let incarcerated mathematicians write computer programs using only the rudimentary “e-mail” system available to people in prison."
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Jan Ziff
- Comment: I know it's outside the usual WP:SOHA time frame, but we could hold this until Pi Day (March 14).

Moved to mainspace by Apocheir (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 11 past nominations.

Apocheir (talk) 03:18, 30 December 2025 (UTC).

More information General: Article is new enough and long enough ...

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

More information Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems ...

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

More information Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation ...

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: @Apocheir: The article has well-cited statements with no copyvios and plagiarism detected by Earwig. While the ALT1 hook is good, I am unsure about the main hook because it includes extra details (professor being from Italy, prison location near Seattle) that are not explicitly mentioned in the article—is that allowed? I am also unsure if this can be held all the way for March 14, so I'll defer that to someone else who can provide a second opinion on SOHA. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 01:25, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Coming back to this now, for Alt0, "a prison in the US" would probably be better. It assumes less of the reader. I added a couple words to the article specifying that the University of Torino is in Italy. Apocheir (talk) 23:13, 23 January 2026 (UTC)
- @Apocheir: Apologies for the really late reply. The changes to the main hook and the article look good. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 05:11, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
Today is six weeks before Pi Day, which is the usual time period for SOHA. Apocheir (talk) 02:35, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
- Y ALT0 is acceptable for SOHA now. Nrco0e (talk • contribs) 05:11, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Previously promoted in error; held for Pi Day. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 16:46, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

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