
LMFDB, a catalog of mathematical objects and the connections between them - ghosh
http://aimath.org/aimnews/lmfdb/
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nv-vn
The idea is awesome, but it sort of loses its usefulness to people who aren't
math experts. It's very clear by looking at the website that it's _not_ meant
to be a Wikipedia for math. That's definitely not a bad thing, but I think
that this website leaves an opening for something conceptually similar (but
different in its implementation) that would be a sort of digital pathway
through as many math concepts as possible -- for example, you can start on a
page formalizing the idea of numbers and click links to navigate to addition,
and then later on to multiplication, etc. allowing one to study math from the
ground up. Or, you could start at a high-level concept and work your way down
to the simple math. The purpose wouldn't be for researchers to better connect
math, but for students trying to learn how math comes together in a broader
sense. I think that a site like that could serve the same general purpose we
see here of collecting math into a big catalog, just in a way that's more
friendly to newcomers.

~~~
spuz
There is something like this already called Wolfram Mathworld [1]. As a
mathematical laymen trying to solve the problems on Project Euler, Mathworld
would often give me the insight I needed to find an efficient solution so it
is a great tool for students.

[1] [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/)

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nitrogen
_Edit: Link since the link in the article is missing the
protocol:[http://www.lmfdb.org](http://www.lmfdb.org) ._

This is somewhat similar to (and significantly more detailed than) something
I've wanted for a long time:

    
    
      Feb. 26, 2009
      -------------
      
      What the world really needs is a poster that teachers
      can hang in their classrooms with a map of the world
      of math.  It would essentially be a directed acyclic
      graph, with nodes representing mathematical concepts,
      and arrows linking those concepts to the next level
      of concepts one can learn, as well as real-life
      problems that can be solved with that level of math.
      For example, the chart would start with basic
      arithmetic, with addition and subtraction leading to
      multiplication and division.  The related tasks
      possible with addition would be things like grocery
      shopping, subtraction would be figuring change from a
      purchase or determining how much time remains before
      some event.  Multiplication would allow one to make
      simple designs, calculate taxes and tips, etc.  The
      arrows would then go through the concepts of algebra,
      geometry, calculus, and on to things like the Fourier
      transform.  The things one can do at a particular
      level could be represented as a bubble, with more
      math leading to a bigger bubble (and, if necessary to
      convince the kids, more money).
      
      This would also be beneficial to college students
      trying to convince their brains to remember all the
      seemingly-useless things they are learning in one
      class because they need to understand the concepts
      for next semester's classes.  In fact, such roadmaps
      would make life a lot easier in general.  "Want to
      become a $140000/year contractor?  These are the
      steps you follow."

~~~
lgas
Sounds like Khan Academy's knowledge map:

[https://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard](https://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard)

I think you have to be logged in, but you can see a screenshot here:

[http://i.imgur.com/3HyRRyv.png](http://i.imgur.com/3HyRRyv.png)

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defenestration
The link to the atlas in the article isn't working. You can visit the atlas
via: [http://www.lmfdb.org](http://www.lmfdb.org)

~~~
dewiz
the authors forgot to add the protocol to the link

href="www.lmfdb.org" should be
href="[http://www.lmfdb.org"](http://www.lmfdb.org")

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9mit3t2m9h9a
I would say that «a mathematical universe» would be more correct here, because
they just cover some of the areas; for example searching for «Ramsey» will
yield no results; «probability» will yield just one result where an algebraic
construction happens to be useful for calculating some probabilities.

~~~
gjulianm
I don't know why it is being presented on the news as a catalog of the whole
mathematics, when it is designed just a catalog of mathematical objects
related to the Langlands Program [1] which is very broad as a mathematical
theory (you don't usually find theories touching abstract algebra geometry,
number theory and analysis) but of course does not consider _all_ mathematical
objects.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langlands_program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langlands_program)

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dang
This was discussed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667487),
but since the article gives more background, we won't treat the post as a
dupe.

(Submitted title was "Scientists Launched an Enormous Atlas of the
Mathematical Universe", which was arguably editorialized and rather
baity—please don't do that. We replaced it with a representative phrase from
the article.)

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est
Might be related, are there any websites where you can learn knowledge/skills
like a Skill Tree/Perk Tree in games?

I knew Duolingo had a design like that.

~~~
kachnuv_ocasek
Doesn't Khan Academy have that?

~~~
est
Does Khan Academy have some kind of test, so when I finish it will
automatically assess by present abilities and activate corresponding skill
icons?

~~~
lgas
Yes

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brudgers
Recent related discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11667487)

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thegp
I wonder if it is possible to get a full dump of that db

~~~
mixedmath
It is. It's open source, and the backend is closely tied to the free math
software sagemath (sometimes called sage). In fact, the site sometimes
generates the data on request through sage instead of filling in large
databases of static objects.

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iso-8859-1
As a catalog of mathematical objects, it should be comparable to Metamath:
[http://de.metamath.org/index.html](http://de.metamath.org/index.html)

But this project seems to be specific to number theory, and not really
concerned with proofs at all.

Where can I find the webcast mentioned?

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ianpurton
It's great when scientists do stuff.

