MathWorld
|
|
MathWorld is an online mathematics reference work, sponsored by Wolfram Research Inc., the creators of the Mathematica computer algebra system. It is also partially funded by the National Science Foundation's National Science Digital Library grant to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
History
Eric W. Weisstein, the creator of the site, was a physics and astronomy student who got into the habit of writing notes on his mathematical readings. In 1995 he put his notes online and called it "Eric's Treasure Trove of Mathematics"; it contained hundreds of pages/articles, covering a wide range of mathematical topics. At the time it was by far the best single collected resource on mathematics on the web, and became very popular. Eric continuously improved the notes and accepted corrections and comments from online readers. Around 1997, he made a contract with CRC Press and the contents of the site were published in print and CD-ROM, titled "CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics". The free online version became only partially accessible to the public. In 1999 Weisstein went to work for Wolfram Research, Inc. (WRI), and WRI renamed the Math Treasure Trove to MathWorld at http://mathworld.wolfram.com and hosted it on the company's website without access restrictions.
In 2000, CRC Press sued WRI, WRI president Stephen Wolfram, and author Eric Weisstein, due to what they considered a breach of contract: that the MathWorld content was to remain in print only. The site was taken down by a court injunction. The case was later settled out of court, with WRI paying an unspecified amount and complying with other stipulations. Among these stipulations is the inclusion of a copyright notice at the bottom of the website and broad rights for the CRC Press to produce MathWorld in printed book form. The site then became once again available free to the public.
This case made a wave of headlines in online publishing circles. Some people accused CRC Press of corporate greed, and demanded a free online encyclopedia.
Many people depended on having a free mathematics encyclopedic resource available on the Internet. Because of the temporary closure of MathWorld, a number of individuals have tried to start a free online math encyclopedia from scratch. Among the websites currently carrying the most extensive encyclopedic mathematics content are PlanetMath and Wikipedia.
In some mathematical circles, notably the usenet group sci.math, there has been some discussion over the quality of MathWorld's articles. While the information in MathWorld is considered generally correct some people point out that there have occasionally been misleading or false statements included in MathWorld[1] (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.math/browse_thread/thread/97a906ba4b8d774b/f6488e9717c7f352?q=mathworld+errors&_done=%2Fgroup%2Fsci.math%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dmathworld+errors%26start%3D10%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#f6488e9717c7f352)[2] (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.math/browse_thread/thread/e4b7b1197966d698/4f82bf4d1db37d1f?q=mathworld+errors&_done=%2Fgroup%2Fsci.math%2Fsearch%3Fgroup%3Dsci.math%26q%3Dmathworld+errors%26qt_g%3D1%26searchnow%3DSearch+this+group%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#4f82bf4d1db37d1f). Often people making this charge view MathWorld as a convenient resource, but are less likely to view it as definitive. There is no known systematic study of MathWorld's consistency so its quality remains a matter of debate and discussion.
See also
External links
- Wolfram Research's MathWorld (http://mathworld.wolfram.com)
- Eric Weisstein's account of the suit (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/about/erics_commentary.html)it:MathWorld