8
$\begingroup$

This has been one of my earlier academic dreams. I have pitched the idea to Prof Ravi Vakil, among others. Recently, because of participation in the mathematical competition hosted by Alibaba, I have decided to revive my decade-old enthusiasm. The basic idea is as follows. Many mathematical texts are difficult to penetrate on one's own, be it due to typos, vagueness, or prerequisite assumptions. Thus it is helpful to study with friends or mentors. People out of the academic circle, or even graduate students, may find it difficult to meet people of similar interest, let alone reading the same chapter of the same GTM book.

Given the success of numerous online Q&A fora, including this one, and the ridiculous level of specialization, it seems plausible and the right timing that we can now dedicate one group/site to each textbook. Even though it is often advised that one should not read a technical treatise sequentially, there is something satisfying about being able to finish a single math text from back to back that cursory scan or occasional reference lookup does not conjure. To be honest I did not manage to finish a single book this way during grad school. Note taking on a single text is also a great mnemonic tool in the long term, as I am sure many people still practice.

So my question is simple, are there existing platforms that offer such service already? I am aware of something tangentially related, such as Fermat's Library. But I don't see a way to expand it into a full-blown book-based service. My recent encounter with Slack suggests that the latter may be a more suitable style than stack exchange, since it encourages multi-threaded conversations around a single topic. The level of specialization there is naturally more fine-grained than MO, down to a specific piece of software for instance. Not all books need to get the same amount of attention, but just having a few books being annotated and Q&A'ed frequently can really facilitate self-paced learning.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Would this be helpful to many students/researchers in math?

$\endgroup$
5
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Somewhat related post on Mathematics: How to organize math study groups online for long-distance collaboration? As a side note, I'll mention that there were several attempts to use Stack Exchange chatroom as a way to organize a few users of Math.SE together to created a study group or a reading group. (In one case I remember, reddit was also used for communication - in addition to chat.) $\endgroup$ Jul 6, 2020 at 7:23
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ And maybe you remember that there is a failed proposal for a Stack Exchange site which is not exactly what you want, but at least related. It was discussed on MathOverflow Meta: area 51 proposal - Math review. And here is one more discussion on meta: Wouldn't it be nice to have subforums on MathOverflow dedicated to learning certain books/papers/etc.?. In any case, the conclusion from those meta discussion seems to be that Stack Exchange is probably not the right place for such project. $\endgroup$ Jul 6, 2020 at 7:31
  • $\begingroup$ These are great references that I wasn't able to locate myself. I may explore Reddit more next. $\endgroup$
    – John Jiang
    Jul 6, 2020 at 7:41
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I used the MO chatroom once and quickly lost focus; people in math/physics do not have similar level of urgency as software engineers:D Something like Slack would be much more useful. Unfortunately they mostly cater towards engineers. $\endgroup$
    – John Jiang
    Jul 6, 2020 at 7:49
  • $\begingroup$ Some of the study groups in Stack Exchange chat that I was able to find are mentioned in this chat conversation. (Although I am not really sure whether some useful insight can be gained from looking through them.) $\endgroup$ Jul 6, 2020 at 9:41

0

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.