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I actually think that for a lot of maths/CS/Physics issues, wikipedia is a horrible introduction to people unfamiliar with the topic. A site which curates expla

I actually think that for a lot of maths/CS/Physics issues, wikipedia is a horrible introduction to people unfamiliar with the topic. A site which curates explanations in normalspeak with some form of interaction (i.e. "Can you explain why...") would actually be a very useful resource for a lot of people, myself included.

det23x 14y ago
Yeah, that's true, but you can also use free ebooks, slides from lectures, etc. and you often find really good stuff. Furthermore one should not have to register for such a service ... consider wikipedia would require you to login to find out how, e.g. merge sort works.
- pvarangot 14y ago
  Wikipedia is supposed to be static, without questions from readers on any engagement besides reading and maybe correcting or expanding something. Also, no serious Wikipedia article about math or physics is thought of as an introduction. Sometimes its the other way around, its written for experts and goes into surface or line integrals, or sometimes even tensor notation, when an introduction would not. I think this website is trying to reduce friction for user interaction and aggregating it, and also tries to curate material into different levels of difficulty. Both things merit asking for a login, for social its obvious why, and to curate for difficulty its helpful to use the feedback from users as a signal of an innadecuate label.
jonahx 14y ago
khan academy, among others, already addresses this
- kyzyl 14y ago
  Khan academy is nice for the material it covers, but anybody going beyond high school will find it rapidly becomes obsolete (according to the content ca. the last time I checked). The treatments are simply too elementary and the topics too low level. I would think a site where people can ask anything, ala stackoverflow, would yield more useful results for many physics/math/cs students.
  - bradddd 14y ago
    That may have been true a couple years ago, but they are rapidly expanding. They now include calculus and diff eq with plans to go beyond. They're even researching med school related content for the future. That being said, I wouldn't take that as a reason to not pursue this.
    - claudius 14y ago
      > They now include calculus and diff eq with plans to go beyond. So first year of uni tops, where most of calculus is still high school.
    - grwgreg 14y ago
      The differential equations videos have been up since 2009.
    - kyzyl 14y ago
      Looking at what's on there, I'm really not convinced. You could not get through an physics, engineering or math program on the material that is there, not even close. If I search for, say, complex analysis, all of the material I get is about complex arithmetic. No multivalued functions, branch cuts, p.v. integrals, harmonic functions, DEs, nothing. It's all what they expect you to know going INTO the course, or that they cover in the first two days. Similarly, if I go into the physics topics, they are all <= intro courses, at best. Optics? Doesn't talk about fourier optics, lasers, etc. E&M? Doesn't seem to mention Maxwell's Equations anywhere... enough said. Quantum mech? Nothing. Statistical mech? Nothing. Okay, how about math? Take a look at the differential equations stuff. No higher order, no series methods, no numerical methods, no coupled systems, no non-linear. Probability? No markov chains, MCMC methods, or anything except basic RVs and statistics (which is not the same thing as probability). Same for linear algebra: no fitting methods, no matrix decomposition, no graph theory. I could go on. The point is that they cover the most basic elements of each subject, and they miss a hell of a lot of important subjects. That's okay, but don't claim that they're anywhere close to being able to educate you at a university level.
- orillian 14y ago
  khan academy does so but with a definite focus on children, this feels a little more grown up. Besides, just because khan does similar things does not reduce the value potential this has. There is a lot more of a social SO type feel with Function Space whereby a user can ask questions and receive answers in an open forum. That is more hidden on khan. For those of you complaining about the login. Give it a shot, there is a fairly well thought out site behind that login and the dev has expressed his intent to make things more open. With a site like this being able to ask and comment is kinda key to it working anyways. Use your spam address on the site until you feel it's worthy of your "personal" one. But do check it out. Free and open access to knowledge and knowledgeable people needs to be done in as many places and formats as possible. I hope this goes far. O.

det23x 14y ago

Yeah, that's true, but you can also use free ebooks, slides from lectures, etc. and you often find really good stuff. Furthermore one should not have to register for such a service ... consider wikipedia would require you to login to find out how, e.g. merge sort works.

pvarangot 14y ago
Wikipedia is supposed to be static, without questions from readers on any engagement besides reading and maybe correcting or expanding something. Also, no serious Wikipedia article about math or physics is thought of as an introduction. Sometimes its the other way around, its written for experts and goes into surface or line integrals, or sometimes even tensor notation, when an introduction would not. I think this website is trying to reduce friction for user interaction and aggregating it, and also tries to curate material into different levels of difficulty. Both things merit asking for a login, for social its obvious why, and to curate for difficulty its helpful to use the feedback from users as a signal of an innadecuate label.

jonahx 14y ago

khan academy, among others, already addresses this

kyzyl 14y ago
Khan academy is nice for the material it covers, but anybody going beyond high school will find it rapidly becomes obsolete (according to the content ca. the last time I checked). The treatments are simply too elementary and the topics too low level. I would think a site where people can ask anything, ala stackoverflow, would yield more useful results for many physics/math/cs students.
- bradddd 14y ago
  That may have been true a couple years ago, but they are rapidly expanding. They now include calculus and diff eq with plans to go beyond. They're even researching med school related content for the future. That being said, I wouldn't take that as a reason to not pursue this.
  - claudius 14y ago
    > They now include calculus and diff eq with plans to go beyond. So first year of uni tops, where most of calculus is still high school.
  - grwgreg 14y ago
    The differential equations videos have been up since 2009.
  - kyzyl 14y ago
    Looking at what's on there, I'm really not convinced. You could not get through an physics, engineering or math program on the material that is there, not even close. If I search for, say, complex analysis, all of the material I get is about complex arithmetic. No multivalued functions, branch cuts, p.v. integrals, harmonic functions, DEs, nothing. It's all what they expect you to know going INTO the course, or that they cover in the first two days. Similarly, if I go into the physics topics, they are all <= intro courses, at best. Optics? Doesn't talk about fourier optics, lasers, etc. E&M? Doesn't seem to mention Maxwell's Equations anywhere... enough said. Quantum mech? Nothing. Statistical mech? Nothing. Okay, how about math? Take a look at the differential equations stuff. No higher order, no series methods, no numerical methods, no coupled systems, no non-linear. Probability? No markov chains, MCMC methods, or anything except basic RVs and statistics (which is not the same thing as probability). Same for linear algebra: no fitting methods, no matrix decomposition, no graph theory. I could go on. The point is that they cover the most basic elements of each subject, and they miss a hell of a lot of important subjects. That's okay, but don't claim that they're anywhere close to being able to educate you at a university level.
orillian 14y ago
khan academy does so but with a definite focus on children, this feels a little more grown up. Besides, just because khan does similar things does not reduce the value potential this has. There is a lot more of a social SO type feel with Function Space whereby a user can ask questions and receive answers in an open forum. That is more hidden on khan. For those of you complaining about the login. Give it a shot, there is a fairly well thought out site behind that login and the dev has expressed his intent to make things more open. With a site like this being able to ask and comment is kinda key to it working anyways. Use your spam address on the site until you feel it's worthy of your "personal" one. But do check it out. Free and open access to knowledge and knowledgeable people needs to be done in as many places and formats as possible. I hope this goes far. O.