
Show HN: Discover the World of Mathematics - CatsAreCool
https://mathpendium.org/
======
gus_massa
The front page is too empty. You must add some links to popular topics
(quadratic equation? topology?) and some link to random topics. Something like
the Wikipedia main page.

There is an error in
[https://mathpendium.org/view/5e33c092981ec41bc6b27939](https://mathpendium.org/view/5e33c092981ec41bc6b27939)
(two missed $ and the rendered is unhappy with \subset)

Can I edit without an account? Please. I'm too lazy to create one :) . I guess
it's a tradeoff between spam and making it easy to make small contributions.

~~~
CatsAreCool
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, it seems I need to redesign the site to make it
easier to navigate and feel less empty. I like your suggestions about adding
popular topics.

Thanks for letting me know about the error. Right now Mathpendium has around
1000 entries, and so it is easy for some errors to slip through the cracks.

I was debating about whether or not to require an account to make a
contribution. As you mentioned, making an account helps decrease the chance of
spam. However, I am open to allowing anonymous contributions, and it is good
to know that others would appreciate that.

------
bovermyer
I searched for "voronoi" and got no results. I don't know if this is because
the site doesn't have any content about voronoi polygons, or if search is
broken. I assume it's the former.

That then leads me to ask - how do I discover what content the site has, and
what content is it likely to have in the near future?

~~~
r-zip
There appears to be quite a lot of missing (basic) content. Try searching
"Cauchy-Schwarz" (or its variants). Nothing. Same for "Fourier".

~~~
CatsAreCool
Thanks for the feedback. The site's growth model more like Wikipedia's growth
model in that it grows by user contributions.

This is something that I need to better communicate on the site and explains
why the site currently has some content, but not others.

------
throwaway5752
I just searched for "game theory" and got no results which is jarring even
though I understand why. Indexing LaTex snippets has its use but is too far
removed from higher level concepts to be generally useful. Mathworld
([http://mathworld.wolfram.com/](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/)) had a huge
number of high quality, high level articles. It would be very interesting if
the top-down and bottom-up approaches respectively between the two could be
combined.

If Eric Weisstein
([http://mathworld.wolfram.com/about/author.html](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/about/author.html))
is out there reading, thank you for your work. I can't believe the longevity
and quality of Mathworld.

~~~
CatsAreCool
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.

~~~
K0SM0S
> 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
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.

------
breck
> What if you could easily answer the question "what is everything currently
> known in mathematics."

I love this. I work on this problem a lot. More generally of the form "what is
everything currently known in X"?

I would love to be able to make statements like "I am familiar with X/Y/Z% of
the nodes in Computer Science/Medicine/Arrested Development Season 2". I would
love it if the abstract idea of the "dent"
([http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-
pictures/](http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/)) a
researcher makes could actually be concretely measured as nodes
added/updated/subtracted from some corpus of knowledge.

Have you thought about moving the content to a git repo and allowing people to
contribute via a pull request?

~~~
CatsAreCool
Yes, the goal is to help people know what is known in an area. I will update
the docs to make this more clear.

I am open to supporting pull requests, but my thoughts were that the custom
user interface Mathpendium has allows for an easier contribution process.

------
oefrha
I’m not convinced about the usefulness of this format, but I’ll reserve
judgement for now. However, one thing I’m almost certain is that
categorization and navigation by topic is a must-have; serendipity just
doesn’t cut it (unless you have made some truly groundbreaking advancements in
search). Btw, I searched quite a few keywords in algebraic geometry and found
nothing; maybe you could look into converting the Stacks project (they even
have an API[1]) into your format and contemplate usefulness in the process.

Another meta suggestion: IMO knowing who you are is usually pretty important
for establishing trust in academic circles. Maybe link to your personal
homepage on the about page? Right now all we get is a project-specific email
so you’re basically anonymous.

[1]
[https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/api](https://stacks.math.columbia.edu/api)

~~~
CatsAreCool
Thanks for the feedback. I have a lot of feedback on the need for searching by
topic, and it us something I will add.

Also, I can add a bio page about myself.

------
jonplackett
When I landed on the front page i thought it hadn't loaded properly. Had no
idea what to do.

Is this just for people who already know lots about math? If so maybe that's
why I didn't get it.

~~~
CatsAreCool
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, it seems others too have felt the home page was
hard to navigate because it was too empty. I will explore ways to make it more
clear how to use the site.

I'm thinking perhaps a list of categories to explore (calculus, real analysis,
abstract algebra, etc.) could be helpful if one doesn't have a specific term
to search for.

~~~
mkl
Do entries have categories? Searching for e.g. "calculus" only brings up one
result.

I think the home page needs to say what the site is for and what kinds of
things are on it, otherwise we have no idea what to search for. Maybe start
with something in the search box and the results already below?

------
yori
Are you using MathJax to display the equations? Why do I not get the MathJax
context menu when I right-click on the equations?

~~~
mkl
It's using Katex, which is smaller and faster:
[https://katex.org/](https://katex.org/)

~~~
CatsAreCool
Yes, I'm using katex because I found the API easier to work with.

~~~
yori
Are you rendering the LaTeX on server-side or on client-side using JavaScript?
I am asking these questions because I find MathJax code in your website:

    
    
      <script type="text/plain" cookie-consent="strictly-necessary">
        window.MathJax = {
          tex: {
            inlineMath: [['$', '$'], ['\\(', '\\)']]
          },
          svg: {
            fontCache: 'global'
          }
        };
      </script>
      <script type="text/javascript" id="MathJax-script" async
        src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-svg.js">
      </script>

~~~
CatsAreCool
Actually, that code should be deleted. At one time, I was experimenting with
MathJax but don't use it anymore.

------
mr_gibbins
It's a little lacking in content. I searched for 'Bernoulli' and came up with
nothing, so widened this to 'probability' and nothing still.

It would benefit from some kind of taxonomy on the front page to give an
indication of what content areas are available.

~~~
CatsAreCool
Thanks for the feedback. I have learned that I need to add a way to view
things by category.

Also the site is grown similar to Wikipedia with user contributions, which is
why there isn't as much content now.

This is something I need to better communicate on the site.

------
martopix
Category -> search -> no results found.

------
pjmorris
I searched for 'logic' and 'proof', and all I got was a request to consent to
their use of cookies.

~~~
CatsAreCool
Interesting. The consent for use of cookies dialog should appear the first
time you open the site. After agreeing to the use of cookies, the dialog
shouldn't be displayed anymore. If you don't mind me asking, what browser and
system are you using?

~~~
pjmorris
Chrome/OS X. I didn't agree to the cookies, and wouldn't do so until I was
satisfied that the site was of interest and value. Give people a chance to
test drive it before requiring consent.

------
klundqist
"probability" search term doesn't give a useful result. How is data fed into
the system?

~~~
CatsAreCool
The system is mostly fed by user contributions. Better communicating this is
something I need to improve on the site.

------
obscura
Long equations break out of the content box. E.g.,
view/5e33c093981ec41bc6b279b7

~~~
CatsAreCool
Thanks for the feedback. This is a known issue, but I am working on other
higher priority issues at the time.

