MathOverflow is a

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

question-and-answer (Q&A) website, which serves as an online community of mathematicians. It allows users to ask questions, submit answers, and rate both, all while getting merit points for their activities. It is a part of the Stack Exchange Network, but distinct fro
math.stackexchange.com
It is primarily for asking questions on mathematics research – i.e. related to unsolved problems and the extension of knowledge of mathematics into areas that are not yet known – and does not welcome requests from non-mathematicians for instruction, for example homework exercises. It does welcome various questions on other topics that might normally be discussed among mathematicians, for example about publishing, refereeing, advising, getting tenure, etc. It is generally inhospitable to questions perceived as tendentious or argumentative.

Origin and history

The website was started by Berkeley graduate students and postdocs Anton Geraschenko, David Zureick-Brown, and Kim Morrison on 28 September 2009 based on the idea of Sándor Kovács's NSF CAREER Grant. The hosting was supported by

Ravi Vakil Ravi D. Vakil (born February 22, 1970) is a Canadian-American mathematician working in algebraic geometry. He is the current president of the American Mathematical Society. Education and career Vakil attended high school at Martingrove Collegiat ...

. The site originally ran on a separate installation of the StackExchange 1.0 software engine; on June 25, 2013, it was integrated in the regular Stack Exchange Network, running SE 2.0.

Naming

According to MathOverflow FAQ, the proper spelling is "MathOverflow" rather than "Math Overflow".

Use of mathematical formulas

The original version of the website did not support

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latices are found in nature, but synthetic latices are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a wikt:milky, milky fluid, which is present in 10% of all floweri ...

markup for mathematical formulas. To support most of the functionality of LaTeX, MathJax was added in order for the site to transform math equations into their appropriate forms. In its current state, any post including "Math Mode" (text between $'s) will translate into proper mathematical notation.

Usage

As of April 4, 2012, there were 16,496 registered users on MathOverflow, most of whom were located in the United States (35%), India (12%), and the United Kingdom (6%). By December 11, 2018, the number of registered users had grown to 87,850. As of June 2019, 123,448 questions have been posted. In 2011, questions were answered an average of 3.9 hours after they were posted, and "Acceptable" answers took an average of 5.01 hours.

Reception

* Terence Tao compared it to "the venerable newsgroup ''sci.math'', but with more modern, ' Web 2.0' features". * John C. Baez writes that "website 'Math Overflow' has become a universal clearinghouse for math questions". * According to Gil Kalai, MathOverflow "is ran by an energetic and impressive group of very (very very) young people". * Jordan Ellenberg comments that the website "offers a constantly changing array of new questions" and is "addictive" in a "particularly pure form", as he compares it to the Polymath Project. * Jared Keller in '' The Atlantic'' writes: "Math Overflow is almost an anti-social network, focused solely on productively addressing the problems posed by its users." He quotes Kim Morrison saying: "Mathematicians as a whole are surprisingly skeptical of many aspects of the modern Internet... In particular, things like

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, Twitter, etc. are viewed as enormous wastes of time."

Notes

External links

* * — podcast with Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood (creators of Stack Exchange) and Anton Geraschenko (creator of MathOverflow). {{Fog Creek Software Mathematics websites Internet properties established in 2009 Stack Exchange network