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Probably true! That said, Wikipedia's mathy pages have proved repeatedly useful to me as a reference, e.g., whenever I remember a mathematical concept only vag
by cs702 6y ago
Probably true!
That said, Wikipedia's mathy pages have proved repeatedly useful to me as a reference, e.g., whenever I remember a mathematical concept only vaguely or intuitively and just need to find a detailed formalization to implement it in code. My browser is always open, so Wikipedia is often the "reference of least resistance."
- ghaff 6y agoI'm at least ambivalent about a general purpose encyclopedia having whole categories of articles that are mostly only accessible to specialists. In an ideal world, there would probably be a companion "Mathepedia" or something along those lines with a different target audience. But, of course, Wikipedia doesn't really have the concept of a specific reader persona like a conventionally edited reference does.
- cs702 6y agoI'm ambivalent too, i.e., I agree with your original comment but also, personally, frequently find Wikipedia's "general purpose encyclopedia for specialists" useful. FWIW, there's Simple Wikipedia (https://simple.wikipedia.org https://simple.wikipedia.org), but it is, quite frankly, terrible for learning about anything of a mathematical nature beyond high-school algebra. Perhaps Wikipedia should add a "Learn About This" section to math, physics, engineering, and hard-science pages?