4 ms·

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I agree that Mathworld is great. Mathpendium is not meant to replace sites like Mathworld, but to work with them. I think this

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I agree that Mathworld is great. Mathpendium is not meant to replace sites like Mathworld, but to work with them. I think this is something I need to make more clear on the site. That is, sites like Mathworld are great for finding information and an overview about a topic. For example, it is a great place to learn about what a solvable group is. Mathpendium, on the other hand, is designed to help you if you only want a concise definition of a solvable group, want to find all theorems that describe when a group is solvable, or find all conjectures related to solvable groups. That is, Mathependium is used for when you want to get a list of all theorems related to a topic, with links to other sides for a deep dive or overview. In a sense, theorems are the tools of mathematics, Mathpendium is a toolbox that helps you find those tools, and each item on the site has links to other sites to learn more about the tool.

hatmatrix 7y ago
So Mathpendium is geared more toward the practicing mathematician?
- CatsAreCool 7y ago
  It is more like a reference and a jumping point to books and articles. After understanding the general ideas of a topic it lets you dive deeper. It is definitely targeted towards professional mathematicians, but also those learning math that already have an overview of a topic and want to dive deeper.
K0SM0S 7y ago
> Yes, I agree that Mathworld is great. Slighty OT but, Apart from the fact that it looks and feels like 2006 (that latex renderer is so, so horrible, it's a distraction), and that you can't copy anything meaningful out of it, Mathworld is great. But honestly, as of 2020, I would have thought we'd have much better tools to learn a domain as thoroughly defined as mathematics (interactive, intuitive, etc etc etc). As it stands, it's still really hard without a teacher, but it shouldn't: a rich web experience with text as a basis should be able to produce at least as good understanding as a video (whose only major difference is voice). I'd expect to be able to hover over anything and get a tooltip definition, be able to move things in equations and sliders for constants to see real-time graphs or limits or edge cases etc; with formulas that self-update in real time. I mean, it's a poor state of affairs that the combined body of mathematicians on Earth still haven't come up together to find a way to explain and teach mathematics at least as well as a freaking catalog website can show and sell products. It's not that hard to leverage decent frontends... I love your efforts because I think they're truly headed in the right direction; we need so many more of these tools, innovation on the way to building an actual "base of mathematical knowledge" that's not Wikipedia (too general) nor Matlab (too specific) nor YouTube (good thing but not enough). Back on topic: - are you considering a public-facing API? - I think "discover" (in your title) is misleading and explains some slightly harsh reactions here (failing to honor a promise is really bad marketing). I'd suggest something more like "pro tools for pro math", I mean make the promise that it's a tool for people who already know these things, who don't "discover" but rather "reference", "recall", sort of a modern lookup table. Like, say I've forgotten formula or theorem X, I'd really value being able to get that info as fast as possible.
- CatsAreCool 7y ago
  Thanks for your support. I share your views too, which is why I am creating Mathpendium :) Right now I haven't thought about a public API. I am currently focusing on how users use the site since this will provide good feedback for how an API could be used. I think you make a really good point for the discover title, and I really like your suggestion. This is definitely I will address. Thanks for the feedback. It is really helpful.
throwaway5752 7y ago
I noticed some issues rendering LaTex. Also if I were you, I would probably prioritize curated annotation. For example: * I searched for "Lebesgue integral" and got no results. I searched for "Lebesgue" and got results on Lebesgue measures. I would expect the first search to ... say return an outbound link to the mathworld/wikipedia article for the high level overview. Then I would expect it to toss "integral" as too generic and show all following results for just "Lebesgue" * I searched for "Zeta function" and got no results. I search for "zeta" and found some relevant material but not much. Similar expectations as I had around Lebesgue integral searches. * I search for "Banach space" and got no results, nor anything for "Banach" which makes me think you have a lot more indexing to do. * If you search for "Riemann" the first page/second result and second page/first results have rendering issues: "\<astyle="text−decoration:underline;color:black;"href="javascript:globalEntitySelected( ′ bedb7aa7−eb4f−47fe−9de0−e50e262c3289 ′ , ′ 5e33c092981ec41bc6b27930 ′ )">sum</a> j=1 n f(c j )[g(x j )−g(x j−1 )]−L ∣ ∣ ∣ <ϵ, " and "\newline{}For all x\geq 2.01x≥2.01" respectively * Finally, I understand the cookie notice, but don't have it overlap the page selector on paginated results. Until I hid the element I didn't realize there were multiple pages of results in some cases.
- CatsAreCool 7y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. I need to work on better communicating that the site is grown through user contributions. That is why the results are currently limited. Also, thanks for pointing out the LaTeX issues. There are a lot of edge cases to address. As for the cookie notification, I agree with your feedback. I am using a third party component for that. I will need to see what customization I can do.

hatmatrix 7y ago

So Mathpendium is geared more toward the practicing mathematician?

CatsAreCool 7y ago
It is more like a reference and a jumping point to books and articles. After understanding the general ideas of a topic it lets you dive deeper. It is definitely targeted towards professional mathematicians, but also those learning math that already have an overview of a topic and want to dive deeper.

K0SM0S 7y ago

> Yes, I agree that Mathworld is great. Slighty OT but, Apart from the fact that it looks and feels like 2006 (that latex renderer is so, so horrible, it's a distraction), and that you can't copy anything meaningful out of it, Mathworld is great. But honestly, as of 2020, I would have thought we'd have much better tools to learn a domain as thoroughly defined as mathematics (interactive, intuitive, etc etc etc). As it stands, it's still really hard without a teacher, but it shouldn't: a rich web experience with text as a basis should be able to produce at least as good understanding as a video (whose only major difference is voice). I'd expect to be able to hover over anything and get a tooltip definition, be able to move things in equations and sliders for constants to see real-time graphs or limits or edge cases etc; with formulas that self-update in real time. I mean, it's a poor state of affairs that the combined body of mathematicians on Earth still haven't come up together to find a way to explain and teach mathematics at least as well as a freaking catalog website can show and sell products. It's not that hard to leverage decent frontends... I love your efforts because I think they're truly headed in the right direction; we need so many more of these tools, innovation on the way to building an actual "base of mathematical knowledge" that's not Wikipedia (too general) nor Matlab (too specific) nor YouTube (good thing but not enough). Back on topic: - are you considering a public-facing API? - I think "discover" (in your title) is misleading and explains some slightly harsh reactions here (failing to honor a promise is really bad marketing). I'd suggest something more like "pro tools for pro math", I mean make the promise that it's a tool for people who already know these things, who don't "discover" but rather "reference", "recall", sort of a modern lookup table. Like, say I've forgotten formula or theorem X, I'd really value being able to get that info as fast as possible.

CatsAreCool 7y ago
Thanks for your support. I share your views too, which is why I am creating Mathpendium :) Right now I haven't thought about a public API. I am currently focusing on how users use the site since this will provide good feedback for how an API could be used. I think you make a really good point for the discover title, and I really like your suggestion. This is definitely I will address. Thanks for the feedback. It is really helpful.

throwaway5752 7y ago

I noticed some issues rendering LaTex. Also if I were you, I would probably prioritize curated annotation. For example: * I searched for "Lebesgue integral" and got no results. I searched for "Lebesgue" and got results on Lebesgue measures. I would expect the first search to ... say return an outbound link to the mathworld/wikipedia article for the high level overview. Then I would expect it to toss "integral" as too generic and show all following results for just "Lebesgue" * I searched for "Zeta function" and got no results. I search for "zeta" and found some relevant material but not much. Similar expectations as I had around Lebesgue integral searches. * I search for "Banach space" and got no results, nor anything for "Banach" which makes me think you have a lot more indexing to do. * If you search for "Riemann" the first page/second result and second page/first results have rendering issues: "\<astyle="text−decoration:underline;color:black;"href="javascript:globalEntitySelected( ′ bedb7aa7−eb4f−47fe−9de0−e50e262c3289 ′ , ′ 5e33c092981ec41bc6b27930 ′ )">sum</a> j=1 n f(c j )[g(x j )−g(x j−1 )]−L ∣ ∣ ∣ <ϵ, " and "\newline{}For all x\geq 2.01x≥2.01" respectively * Finally, I understand the cookie notice, but don't have it overlap the page selector on paginated results. Until I hid the element I didn't realize there were multiple pages of results in some cases.

CatsAreCool 7y ago
Thanks for the feedback. I need to work on better communicating that the site is grown through user contributions. That is why the results are currently limited. Also, thanks for pointing out the LaTeX issues. There are a lot of edge cases to address. As for the cookie notification, I agree with your feedback. I am using a third party component for that. I will need to see what customization I can do.