Resource:Mathworld

Mathworld is a free, online mathematics reference work.

SLOGANS: Wolfram Mathworld, the web's most extensive mathematics resource
Eric Weisstein's World of Mathematics
A free resource from Wolfram Research built with Mathematica technology, created, developed and nurtured by Eric Weisstein with contributions from the mathematics community

Use Mathworld

Start Mathworld

Mathworld is online, or Internet-based. It can be accessed using a Web browser and an Internet connection:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com

An older version of Mathworld is also available in book form from CRC Press, ISBN 1584883472.

Search Mathworld

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/search/ to search Mathworld. The search box can also be accessed from any Mathworld page.
Add "site:mathworld.wolfram.com" to a query to search Mathworld using an external search engine such as Google, Yahoo! or Windows Live.

Article naming and reaching a given article

Articles in Mathworld are named using CamelCase conventions: for terms that have multiple words, the multiple words are shrunk into a single word and the first letter of each original word is capitalized. Thus, for instance, "prime number" becomes "PrimeNumber".

The Mathworld URL for a term is given by:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CamelCaseName.html

where CamelCaseName is replaced by the actual name. For instance:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Triangle.html

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeNumber.html

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NormalSubgroup.html

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GammaFunction.html

To go to an article, either type the full URL or use Mathworld's site search.

Organization by topic

The left-hand column gives a list of major mathematical topics into which Mathworld content is organized. Each topic is divided into subtopics, which may in turn be further divided into subtopics. The lowest-level subtopics contain lists of articles.

A given article may be in one or more subtopic. At the top of each article, the subtopic trees to which the article belongs, are shown. Moreover, a given topic may be a subtopic of one or more topics.

The page listing subtopics/articles of a topic is:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/topics/TopicName.html

where TopicName is replaced by the actual name of the topic.

More about Mathworld for users

Mathworld offers a number of features to augment its main site. It runs on Mathematica, a software for mathematics-based computation and graphing. Some of the features that Mathworld offers:

Encyclopedia-like entries on various topics (this is the primary offering)
Mathworld Classroom: This gives short entries on topics, such as a definition, a few examples, the expected level of difficulty of the topic, prerequisites. The classroom entry on a Mathworld topic is linked to from its main entry.
Interactive Entries, using graphics applets. The interactive entries on a Mathworld topic are linked to from its main entry.

Mathworld as a free resource

Free access

All content on Mathworld can be accessed for free (i.e., without any access or subscription fees).

No freedom to copy or mirror

Content in Mathworld is not under an open-content license. The copyright to content lies with the authors and contributors (contributors to a particular article are listed on top of the article). Others do not have the right to copy, mirror or reproduce content on the website.

However, people are encouraged to cite and link to Mathworld and take printouts for personal use, with proper attribution.

Management and organization

Parent organization

Mathworld is operated by Eric Weisstein, a researcher at Wolfram Research, Inc. The funding and support for Mathworld comes from Wolfram Research, Inc.

Software tools

Mathworld is organized based on Mathematica, a mathematics computation and graphing tool. Mathematica is used to generate mathematical symbols and formulae used in the pages, as well as for the interactive demonstrations and elaborate pictures.