Anybody seen the Maths Stackexchange?
I mean DAMN these people are like vultures, I just posted question on there and I felt very attacked, like what the hell? They expect you to know the answer to EVERYTHING, even your own question!
So sad that such a nicely done website can't be used for anything but HIGHLY advanced maths topic that only like three people in the world know about.
So sad that such a nicely done website can't be used for anything but HIGHLY advanced maths topic that only like three people in the world know about.
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Yeah I've been on there in the past. Never experienced anything like what your saying though. The people always are friendly in my experience.
The caliber of mathematicians on there is insane as well, I hardly know what 60% of the questions are on about and it seems like the majority of people on there have a phd are doing a phd or work as professors.
I disagree that it can only be used for advanced topics and have used it for some 1st year maths before with ease. Although sometimes you will get the odd hint or solution that you don't know what the person is on about. They are about nice elegant solutions I think so not always the easiest to follow will be upvoted the most.
It's a useful site
The caliber of mathematicians on there is insane as well, I hardly know what 60% of the questions are on about and it seems like the majority of people on there have a phd are doing a phd or work as professors.
I disagree that it can only be used for advanced topics and have used it for some 1st year maths before with ease. Although sometimes you will get the odd hint or solution that you don't know what the person is on about. They are about nice elegant solutions I think so not always the easiest to follow will be upvoted the most.
It's a useful site
(edited 8 years ago)
People are nice on there as long as you show you've made some attempt to answer the question.
Posted from TSR Mobile
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by gagafacea1
I mean DAMN these people are like vultures, I just posted question on there and I felt very attacked, like what the hell? They expect you to know the answer to EVERYTHING, even your own question!
So sad that such a nicely done website can't be used for anything but HIGHLY advanced maths topic that only like three people in the world know about.
So sad that such a nicely done website can't be used for anything but HIGHLY advanced maths topic that only like three people in the world know about.
I agree.
I find something similar with Stack Overflow which I use more. If you make a small mistake in your question or ask something simple then you'll regret you ever asked the question once the replies start coming in. I'm not a big fan of being treated like a 10 year old.
Maybe I'm just too used to everyone being so nice on TSR
Agreed. Used it once and all these geniuses just swarmed on the question asking me loads of things about it that I just didn't know (hence the reason why I asked the question). It was massively intimidating. Never again.
Original post by notnek
I agree.
I find something similar with Stack Overflow which I use more. If you make a small mistake in your question or ask something simple then you'll regret you ever asked the question once the replies start coming in. I'm not a big fan of being treated like a 10 year old.
Maybe I'm just too used to everyone being so nice on TSR
I find something similar with Stack Overflow which I use more. If you make a small mistake in your question or ask something simple then you'll regret you ever asked the question once the replies start coming in. I'm not a big fan of being treated like a 10 year old.
Maybe I'm just too used to everyone being so nice on TSR
Hmmmm weird I haven't really experienced anything like that on there. Maybe I'm just lucky.
The only thing I would say is sometimes "they" just expect you to know some result or lemma that may not be at all obvious to you first time around.
Also when the edit your question sometimes I find that obnoxious especially when it is fine.
It is like the hardcore version of tsr maths.
You do get a very fast response when it comes to high level (university) mathematics though as the majority of the people on there are well versed in it. Whereas on here a way smaller percentage (I think) are able to assist and often they are too busy/not online or whatever. So if you post here you may need to wait several hours whereas on SE you are likely to be waiting 10 minutes max.
I've been a member there for a while. Let me tell you, that's not the "highly advanced maths topics only three people know about" place - that's MathOverflow.
Stack is not an "answer my question" place, it's a "help me understand maths" place. The difference is that posting there, you are expected to have really tried, and can narrow down the exact difficulty you have. It's different to here in that they will simply give you the full details, because the typical reason you're stuck (as evidenced by your question!) is that you're just not able to continue.
Stack is not an "answer my question" place, it's a "help me understand maths" place. The difference is that posting there, you are expected to have really tried, and can narrow down the exact difficulty you have. It's different to here in that they will simply give you the full details, because the typical reason you're stuck (as evidenced by your question!) is that you're just not able to continue.
Original post by poorform
Also when the edit your question sometimes I find that obnoxious especially when it is
They've put one of mine "on hold" because apparently it doesn't meet their requirements for a question.
They're good when they change it and put the question tags (eg "real-analysis") on for you though.
I'm always scared in case one of my lecturers finds my account. I've put false information on my profile just in case lol.
Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by FireGarden
It's different to here in that they will simply give you the full details, because the typical reason you're stuck (as evidenced by your question!) is that you're just not able to continue.
I think most of the experienced helpers here would agree that this is the opposite to how we help students in this forum.
Original post by rayquaza17
They've put one of mine "on hold" because apparently it doesn't meet their requirements for a question.
They're good when they change it and put the question tags (eg "real-analysis"
on for you though.
I'm always scared in case one of my lecturers finds my account. I've put false information on my profile just in case lol.
Posted from TSR Mobile
They're good when they change it and put the question tags (eg "real-analysis"
on for you though. I'm always scared in case one of my lecturers finds my account. I've put false information on my profile just in case lol.
Posted from TSR Mobile
Why would it matter if they found our account?
Anyway I'm sure they have better things to do than lurk about on some maths website looking for potential students.
Original post by notnek
I think most of the experienced helpers here would agree that this is the opposite to how we help students in this forum.
I agree. I think the comments are the best on there because they usually prompt you to consider something to think about similar to how it's done on here. Full solutions are almost pointless imo.
Original post by poorform
Why would it matter if they found our account?
Anyway I'm sure they have better things to do than lurk about on some maths website looking for potential students.
Anyway I'm sure they have better things to do than lurk about on some maths website looking for potential students.
I might get in trouble for asking the questions online and getting answers when it's like homework questions.
I was thinking maybe they've like subscribed to the question tag things so like each question that gets asked, they might get an email or something.
lol I know I'm overthinking it, but I'm a massive worrier!
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Original post by rayquaza17
I might get in trouble for asking the questions online and getting answers when it's like homework questions.
I was thinking maybe they've like subscribed to the question tag things so like each question that gets asked, they might get an email or something.
lol I know I'm overthinking it, but I'm a massive worrier!
Posted from TSR Mobile
I was thinking maybe they've like subscribed to the question tag things so like each question that gets asked, they might get an email or something.
lol I know I'm overthinking it, but I'm a massive worrier!
Posted from TSR Mobile
Ah okay.
I very much doubt they would even care. Besides is it any different than asking a mate for help or even copying their work.
Original post by poorform
...
Original post by rayquaza17
...
My question was a "soft question", it clearly stated that. It was also very apparent that I'm NOT maths professor at cambridge, yet they all went in on me like I was the stupidest person on earth when my question was very genuine. I asked why don't they teach complex numbers early, just like negative numbers, irrational numbers and so on.
I wanted a nice answer as to how they're very different (Because I'm not sure!!!!), yet all they did was come for me like I knew the answer and wanted to annoy them.
I know they didn't meant to bully me but I felt so bullied!
Original post by FireGarden
Stack is not an "answer my question" place, it's a "help me understand maths" place. The difference is that posting there, you are expected to have really tried, and can narrow down the exact difficulty you have...
Stack is not an "answer my question" place, it's a "help me understand maths" place. The difference is that posting there, you are expected to have really tried, and can narrow down the exact difficulty you have...
Yeah right! How can you understand maths when you're being belittled and patronized as soon as you make the smallest mistake?
Unfortunately, it is commonplace for mathematicians who are at the peak of their game to lose some sight or perspective of their time as a student and thus appear as slightly arrogant - even then, they were probably excellent students and so never had your perspective in the first place. Sometimes they are explicitly arrogant (rarely though in my experience) but other times they are more subtly arrogant, perhaps unknowingly. For example, you may be in a lecture and someone might ask a 'trivial' question to which the lecturer may respond by explicitly saying that the result is trivial. The consequences of this are larger for the student than for the mere lecturer whose mind is probably more focused on their research duty. Indeed, the student has just been told that the thing they didn't understand was basically easy in the first place. The resultant feeling can be, understandably, one of demoralisation.
Fortunately, most mathematicians - from my experience - are very willing to help you and try to be as kind as they can in the process. Just remember that with Stackexchange most of them are academics, some of which work at world leading institutions. A degree of oversight with regards to your feelings can come from this, especially in such an analytical subject as mathematics.
Fortunately, most mathematicians - from my experience - are very willing to help you and try to be as kind as they can in the process. Just remember that with Stackexchange most of them are academics, some of which work at world leading institutions. A degree of oversight with regards to your feelings can come from this, especially in such an analytical subject as mathematics.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by gagafacea1
...
I'm not surprised then. It seems "they" for the most part aren't up for "debating" and would rather people post specific/non subjective answerable problems. Like finding the value of an integral or something.
I need to go on this site i think
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Posted from TSR Mobile
Part of the idea is that a question, once asked an answered in a concise manner, then becomes a reference for others. 99% of the time I use that site as a reference because someone else has asked a similar question to myself in the past. When you're searching for an answer that way, you don't want to be trawling through pages of nonsense. It also means the standard must be higher- if one question is to be answered forever, the answer should be very good.
It's not exactly where I'd go for a debate on teaching.
It's not exactly where I'd go for a debate on teaching.
Original post by gagafacea1
My question was a "soft question", .... I asked why don't they teach complex numbers early, just like negative numbers, irrational numbers and so on.
To be fair, that's not really a 'serious' maths question - it's more about education theory, principles of teaching, politics etc.
You can teach a lot of things 'early' if you want to - when I was at school we did groups, matrices, sets, modular arithmetic and arithmetic in different number bases, all by age 12/13 because those topics were part of our O level syllabus!
Unfortunately, the powers of darkness thought that by taking out all the 'distracting' topics they could fix all the numeracy problems in society, whereas what actually happened was that the people who were innumerate stayed innumerate, and everyone else got bored!
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